uld
attract attention--that would put my name prominently before the public
and keep it there. The girls I read it to thought the scenes just
lovely, though some said perhaps their mothers would not feel that way.
And I told them that the mothers of to-day were very old-fashioned, and
that the public taste was changing rapidly. If the story is too bold,
there are things I could cut out of it, but if you say that would make
no difference, I would rather let them stand. I intend to try some other
concern before I give up."

Mr. Archie Weil had abandoned all pretence of looking out the window. He
stood with his eyes fastened on the pretty girl, as she made these
statements in such a matter-of-fact way. He wondered what the dickens
the story was about, and made up his mind that he would try to get
possession of it.

"All the same," responded Mr. Gouger, who had apparently forgotten his
lunch in his growing interest in the conversation, "I don't see where
girls like you obtain such an intimate knowledge of things. You are not
over twenty--excuse me, I am old enough to tell you this without
offence. It is not you alone, but a hundred others who have made me ask
myself this question. As soon as the modern girl gets a bottle of ink
and a pen and begins to let her thoughts flow over paper, it transpires
that she knows everything--more than everything, almost. Why, I was
twenty-five before I was as wise as the heroine of sixteen, in this
story of yours!"

Miss Fern reddened again, all the more because she had glanced up and
encountered the bright eyes of Mr. Weil fixed upon her.

"Why, Archie," pursued the literary man--he turned toward Mr. Weil--"you
remember Lelia Dante, you have seen her here. Five or six years ago I
got a letter from that young girl's mother asking me to come to their
residence and hear a story she had written. It was her first one, and
the child was not a day over seventeen. I couldn't believe it when she
came into the room, with her hair tumbled about her shoulders, and began
to read to me the first chapter of 'Zaros.' 'Did _she_ write that?' I
asked her mother, incredulously. 'Certainly,' she replied. 'Without aid
from any one?' 'Absolutely alone.' My hair stood on end. I could not
keep it down for the next week with a brush. You know the story. We
printed it, and it sold well, and that is all that C. & S. cared about
it; but I never understood how that infant could conceive it. No more
than I can und