read my
third story aloud. It is hardly necessary to mention the names of these
beautiful natures, already so well known to my readers, but I will do
it. They were Maudie Joyce and Mabel Blossom, and they are my dearest
friends at St. Catharine's. And some day, when I am a real writer and
the name of May Iverson shines in gold letters on the tablets of fame,
I'll write a book and dedicate it to them. Then, indeed, they will be
glad they knew me in my schoolgirl days, and recognized real merit when
they saw it, and did not mind the queer things my artistic temperament
often makes me do. Oh, what a slave is one to this artistic, emotional
nature, and how unhappy, how misunderstood! I don't mean that I am
unhappy all the time, of course, but I have Moods. And when I have them
life seems so hollow, so empty, so terrible! At such times natures that
do not understand me are apt to make mistakes, the way Sister Irmingarde
did when she thought I had nervous dyspepsia and made me walk three
miles every day, when it was just Soul that was the matter with me.
Still, I must admit the exercise helped me. It is so soothing, so
restful, so calming to walk on dear nature's breast. Maudie Joyce and
Mabel Blossom always know the minute an attack of artistic temperament
begins in me. Then they go away quietly and reverently, and I write a
story and feel better.

So this time I am going to tell about Kittie James's sister Josephine.
In the very beginning I must explain that Josephine James used to be a
pupil at St. Catharine's herself, ages and ages ago, and finally she
graduated and left, and began to go into society and look around and
decide what her life-work should be. That was long, long before our
time--as much as ten years, I should think, and poor Josephine must be
twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old now. But Kittie says she is just
as nice as she can be, and not a bit poky, and so active and interested
in life you'd think she was young. Of course I know such things can be,
for my own sister Grace, Mrs. George E. Verbeck, is perfectly lovely and
the most popular woman in the society of our city. But Grace is married,
and perhaps that makes a difference. It is said that love keeps the
spirit young. However, perhaps I'd better go on about Josephine and not
dwell on that. Experienced as we girls are, and drinking of life in deep
draughts though we do, we still admit--Maudie, Mabel, and I--that we do
not yet know much about love. Bu