gly, she wiped away the tears that filled her eyes. Lovingly,
she looked up at him,--standing so tall and strong before her, with his
reddish hair tumbled and tossed, and his Irish blue eyes lighted with
the fire of his inspiration.

"Well," she said, at last, "why don't you do it, Brian?"

As a breath of air puts out the light of a candle, so the light went
from Brian Kent's face. Dropping into his chair, he answered hopelessly,
"Because I am afraid."

"Afraid?" echoed Auntie Sue, troubled and amazed. "What in the world are
you afraid of, Brian?"

And the bitter, bitter answer came, "I am afraid of another failure."

Auntie Sue's quick mind caught the significance of his words. "ANOTHER
failure, Brian? Then you,--then you have written before?"

"Yes," he returned. And not since his decision to remain with her had
she seen him so despondent. "To write was the dream and the passion of
my life. I tried and tried. God, how I worked and slaved at it! The only
result from my efforts was the hell from which you dragged me."

Alter a little silence, Auntie Sue said gently: "I don't think I
understand, Brian. You have never told me about your trouble, you know."

"It is an old, old story," he returned. "I am only one of thousands. My
wretched experience is not at all uncommon."

"I know," she answered. "But don't you think that perhaps you had better
tell me? Perhaps, in the mere telling of it to me, now that it is all
over, you may find the real reason for--for what happened to you."

Wise Auntie Sue!--wise in that rarest of all wisdom,--the sympathetic
understanding of human hearts and souls.

"You know about my earlier life," he began; "how, in my boyhood, after
mother's death, I worked at anything I could do to keep myself alive,
and how I managed to gain a little schooling. I was always dreaming of
writing, even then. I took the business course in a night-school, not
because I liked it, but because I thought it would help me to earn a
living in a way that would give me more time for what I really wanted
to do. And after I finished school, and had finally worked up to a good
position in that bank, I did have more time for my writing. But,"--he
hesitated--"I--well,--other interests had come into my life,--and--"

Auntie Sue said, softly, "She did not understand, Brian."

"No, she did not understand," he continued, accepting Auntie Sue's
interpretation without comment. "And when my writing brought no money,
beca