rworks and occasional afternoon
card-parties where the older women wore their Sunday silks and
exchanged recipes and household gossip. If only there was something
interesting--just a little dash of "atmosphere." If only they drank
afternoon tea, or talked about Higher Things, or smoked cigarettes, or
wore long ear-rings! But, perhaps, some day--in New York...

Missy's head drooped; she felt deliciously drowsy. Into the silence of
her dreams a cheerful voice intruded:

"Missy, dear, it's after ten o'clock and you're nodding! Oughtn't you go
up to bed?"

"All right, mother." Obediently she took her dreams upstairs with her,
and into her little white bed.

Thursday afternoon, all shyness and importance strangely compounded,
Missy carried a note-book to Mrs. Brooks's card-party. It was agreeable
to hear Mrs. Brooks effusively explain: "Missy's working on the Beacon
now, you know"; and to feel two dozen pairs of eyes upon her as she sat
writing down the list of guests; and to be specially led out to view the
refreshment-table. There was a profusion of flowers, but as Mrs. Brooks
didn't have much "taste" Missy didn't catch the lilt of inspiration she
had hoped for.

However, after she had worked her "write-up" over several times, she
prefixed a paragraph on the decorations which she hoped would atone for
the drab prosiness of the rest. It ran:

"Through the softly-parted portieres which separate Mrs. J. Barton
Brooks's back-parlour from the dining room came a gracious emanation of
scent and colour. I stopped for a moment in the doorway, and saw, abloom
there before me, a magical maze of flowers. Flowers! Oh, multifold
fragrance and tints divine which so ineffably enrich our lives! Does
anyone know whence they come? Those fragile fairy creatures whose
housetop is the sky; wakened by golden dawn; for whom the silver moon
sings lullaby. Yes; sunlight it is, and blue sky and green earth, that
endow them with their mysterious beauty; these, and the haze of rain
that filters down when clouds rear their sullen heads. Sun and sky,
and earth and rain; they alone may know--know the secrets of these
fairy-folk who, from their slyly-opened petals, watch us at our hurrying
business of life... We, mere humans, can never know. With us it must
suffice to sweeten our hearts with the memory of fragrant flowers."

She was proud of that opening paragraph. But Ed Martin blue-pencilled
it.

"Short of space this week," he said. "Either th