ounger, prettier, smarter. She
turned her head sidewise, like a little bird, and looked at her friend
with very bright eyes. Then she looked round the room.

"My dear Jane," she said, "whatever have you been doing to yourself?"

"Nothing," said her dear Jane very sulkily.

"Oh, if genius burns--your stairs are devilish--but if you'd rather I
went away----"

"No, don't go, Milly. I'm perfectly mad." She jumped up and waved her
outstretched arms over the mass of papers on the table. "Look at all
this--three days' work--rot--abject rot! I wish I was dead. I was
wondering just now whether it would hurt much if one leaned too far out
of the window--and---- No, I didn't do it--as you see."

"What's the matter?" asked the other prosaically.

"Nothing. That's just it. I'm perfectly well--at least I was--only now
I'm all trembly with drink." She pointed to the tea-cups. "It's the
chance of my life, and I can't take it. I can't work: my brain's like
batter. And everything depends on my idiot brain--it has done for these
five years. That's what's so awful. It all depends on me--and I'm going
all to pieces."

"I told you so!" rejoined the other. "You would stay in town all the
summer and autumn, slaving away. I knew you'd break down, and now you've
done it."

"I've slaved for five years, and I've never broken down before."

"Well, you have now. Go away at once. Take a holiday. You'll work like
Shakespeare and Michelangelo after it."

"But I _can't_--that's just it. It's those stories for the _Monthly
Multitude_; I'm doing a series. I'm behind _now_: and if I don't get it
done this week, they'll stop the series. It's what I've been working for
all these years. It's the best chance I've ever had, and it's come
_now_, when I can't do it. Your father's a doctor: isn't there any
medicine you can take to make your head more like a head and less like a
suet pudding?"

"Look here," said Milly, "I really came in to ask you to come away with
us at Whitsuntide; but you ought to go away _now_. Just go to our
cottage at Lymchurch. There's a dear old girl in the village--Mrs
Beale--she'll look after you. It's a glorious place for work. Father did
reams down there. You'll do your stuff there right enough. This is only
Monday. Go to-morrow."

"Did he? I will. Oh yes, I will. I'll go to-night, if there's a train."

"No, you don't, my dear lunatic. You are now going to wash your face
and do your hair, and take me out to dinner--a rea