n with the attempt, if
her mother had not come to her one day with some parcels of cut-out
cotton cloth.

"Faithie, dear," said she, deprecatingly, "I don't like to put such work
upon you while you go to school; but I ought not to afford to have Miss
McElroy this spring. Can't you make up some of these with me?"

There were articles of clothing for Faith, herself. She felt the present
duty upon her; and how could she rebel? Yet what was to become of the
great scheme?

By and by would come vacation, and in the following spring, at farthest,
she would leave school, and then--she would see. She would write a book,
maybe. Why not? And secretly dispose of it, for a large sum, to some
self-regardless publisher. Should there never be another Fanny Burney?
Not a novel, though, or any grown-up book, at first; but a juvenile, at
least, she could surely venture on. Look at all the Cousin Maries, and
Aunt Fannies, and Sister Alices, whose productions piled the
booksellers' counters during the holiday sales, and found their way,
sooner or later, into all the nurseries, and children's bookcases! And
think of all the stories she had invented to amuse Hendie with! Better
than some of these printed ones, she was quite sure, if only she could
set them down just as she had spoken them under the inspiration of
Hendie's eager eyes and ready glee.

She made two or three beginnings, during the summer holidays, but always
came to some sort of a "sticking place," which couldn't be hobbled over
in print as in verbal relation. All the links must be apparent, and
everything be made to hold well together. She wouldn't have known what
they were, if you had asked her--but the "unities" troubled her. And
then the labor loomed up so large before her! She counted the lines in a
page of a book of the ordinary juvenile size, and the number of letters
in a line, and found out the wonderful compression of which manuscript
is capable. And there must be two hundred pages, at least, to make a
book of tolerable size.

There seemed to be nothing in the world that she could do. She could not
give her time to charity, and go about among the poor. She had nothing
to help them with. Her father gave, already, to ceaseless applications,
more than he could positively spare. So every now and then she
relinquished in discouragement her aspirations, and lived on, from day
to day, as other girls did, getting what pleasure she could; hampered
continually, however, wit