as
real to me as this place does. And I shouldn't think it would to you.
Because you were born here, weren't you--and you've been so close to it
most of the time that you're all mixed into it, aren't you? I mean
you've got your roots here. Why don't you write about _them_ for a
while?"

"What?"

"Your roots."

She turned and again her eyes met mine, and again for some reason or
other we smiled.

"All right," I assented gravely, "I'll buy a hoe and start right in."

"That's it, hoe yourself all up. Get as far down as you can remember.
Dig up Belle and Sam, and Sue and your mother and father. Then take a
hoe to Paris and find out why you loved it so, and why you hate the
harbor. Be sure you get all the hate there is, it makes such interesting
reading. Besides, it may be just what you need--it may take the hate all
out of your system."

"Who'll print it?" I demanded.

"Oh, some magazine," she said.

"Do you think this kind of thing would interest their readers?"

"It would interest _me_----"

"Thank you. I'll tell the editors that."

"You'll do no such thing," she said severely. "You'll tell the magazine
editors, please, that I'm only one of thousands of girls who are
getting sick and tired of the happy, cheery little tales they print for
our special benefit. It's just about time they got over the habit of
thinking of us as sweet, young things and gave us some roots we can grow
on."

Another modern girl, I thought.

"Do you, too, want to vote?" I asked her, with a fine, indulgent irony.

"Some day I do," she answered. And then she added with placid scorn,
"When I've learned all the political wisdom that _you_ have to teach
me." And as if that were a good place to stop, she rose from her seat.

"The others seem to have left us," she said. "I think I'd better be
going home."

"Wait a minute, please," I cried. "When am I going to hear about
you--and your side of this dismal body of water?"

She looked back at me serenely.

"Wait till you've got yours all written down," she replied. "You see
mine might only mix you up. Mine is so much pleasanter. Good night," she
added softly.

CHAPTER VI

Until late that night, and again the next day at my desk down in the
warehouse, my thoughts kept drifting back to our talk. With a glow of
surprise I found I remembered not only every word she had said, but the
tones of her voice as she said it, the changing expressions on her face
and in her smiling gray