ation did not disturb her. She
did not even see her feet. She was seeing a pair of bright dark eyes
smiling intimately into her own. Presently, with a dreamy, abstracted
smile, she opened the tablet, poised the pencil, and began to write. But
she was scarcely conscious of any of this, of directing her pencil even;
it was almost as if the pencil, miraculously, guided itself. And it
wrote.

"Are you ready to take your feet out now, Missy?"

Missy raised her head impatiently. It was Aunt Nettie in the door. What
was she talking about--feet?--feet? How could Aunt Nettie?

...... "Oh! go away, won't you, please?" she cried vehemently.

"Well, did you ever?" gasped Aunt Nettie. She stood in the doorway a
minute; then tiptoed away. But Missy was oblivious; the inspired pencil
was speeding back and forth again--"Then each craft passes on into the
unutterable darkness--" and the pencil, too, went on and on.

......

There was a sound of tiptoeing again at the door, of whispering; but the
author took no notice. Then someone entered, bearing a pitcher of hot
water; but the author gave no sign. Someone poured hot water into the
foot-tub; the author wriggled her feet.

"Too hot, dear?" said mother's voice. The author shook her head
abstractedly. Words were singing in her ears to drown all else. They
flowed through her whole being, down her arms, out through her hand and
pencil, wrote themselves immortally. Oh, this was Inspiration! Feeling
at last immeshed in tangibility, swimming out on a tide of words
that rushed along so fast pencil could hardly keep up with them. Oh,
Inspiration! The real thing! Divine, ecstatic, but fleeting; it must be
caught at the flood.

The pencil raced.

And sad, indeed, is that life which sails on its own way, wrapped in its
own gloom, giving out no signal and heeding none, hailing not its fellow
and heeding no hail. For the gloom will grow greater and greater; there
will be no sympathy to tide it over the rocks; no momentary gleams of
love to help it through its struggle; and the storms will rage fiercer
and the sails will hang lower until, at last, it will go down, alone and
unwept, never knowing the joy of living and never reaching the goal.

So let these ships, which have such a vast, such an unutterable
influence, use that influence for brightening the encompassing gloom.
Let them not be wrapped in their own selfishness or sorrow, but let
their voice be filled with hope and love. For, by