ve
been thinking about it for a long time, now, and, to-night, I just can't
keep it to myself any longer. Why don't you give to the world some of
the thoughts you have been wasting on Judy and me?"

"Hit's sure been a-wastin' of 'em on me," agreed Judy. "'Fore God, I
don't sense what he's a-talkin' 'bout, more'n half the time."

Brian laughed. "Judy is prophetic, Auntie Sue. She voices perfectly the
sentiment of the world toward any book I might write."

Auntie Sue detected a note of bitterness underlying the laughing
comment, and wondered.

Judy spoke again as she arose to retire to her room for the night: "I
reckon as how there's a right smart of things youuns talk that'd be
mighty fine if a body only had the learnin' ter sense 'em. An' there
must be heaps of folks where youuns come from what would know Mr.
Burns's meaning if he was to write hit all out plain. Everybody ain't
like me. Hit's sure a God's-blessin' they ain't, too."

"And there, Brian, dear, is your answer," said Auntie Sue, as Judy left
the room. "Any book has meaning only for those who have the peculiar
sympathy and understanding needed to interpret it. A book that means
nothing to one may be rich in meaning for another. Every writer writes
for his own peculiar readers, just as every individual has his own
peculiar friends."

"Or enemies," said Brian.

"Or enemies," agreed Auntie Sue.

Brian went to the window, and stood for some time, looking out into the
night. Then turning, with a nervous gesture, he paced uneasily up
and down the room; while Auntie Sue watched him in silence with an
expression of loving concern on her dear old face.

At last, she spoke: "Why, Brian, what is the matter? What have I said?
I did not mean to upset you like this. Come, sit down here, and tell me
about it. What is it troubles you so?"

With a short laugh, Brian came and stood before her. "I suppose it had
to come sooner or later, Auntie Sue. I have been trying for days to
muster up courage enough to tell you about it. You have touched the one
biggest thing in my life."

"Why, what do you mean, Brian?"

"I mean just what we have been talking about,--writing," answered Brian.

"Oh!" she cried, with quick and delighted triumph. "Then I AM right. You
have been thinking about it, too."

"Thinking about it!" he echoed, and in his voice she felt the nervous
intensity of his mood. "I have thought of nothing else. All day long
when I am at work, I am writing, wr