e left the middle-aged maid in
charge of the elm-shaded, green-shuttered house and went back to New York
with a grief which was more pensive than poignant. She refused,
thereafter, to rent the old home, but loaned it instead, the servant with
it, to various and sundry of her city clan,--now the girl who had carried
her first playlet to success, now to shabby music students at Mrs. Hills'
whom Sarah Farraday was pledged to regale with tea and cheer in the
afternoons, now to sad-eyed women of Michael Daragh's recommendation.

Sometimes she ran up herself with a little house-party,--down-at-the-heel
vaudevilleans, elderly, concert-going ladies from the boarding house,
Emma Ellis and another settlement worker--and made an expenditure for
food and entertainment which secretly scandalized the ancient maid.

She wrote her first slim little novel which was accepted for serial
publication and Rodney Harrison insisted that there was the germ of a
three-act play in it. She set to work on it and labored harder than ever
before in her life, happily, hot-cheeked, shining-eyed, wrote and rewrote
and clipped and amplified and smoothed and polished, and one day Sarah
Farraday ran over to the Hunter's house with a telegram.

"Nannie! It's accepted! Jane's three-act play is accepted! Did you ever
in all your born days see such luck? She just can't fail!" Her earnest,
blonde face was a little wistful. "I never knew any human being to have
so much!"

Mrs. Edward R. was herding the Teddy-bear into the coupe and she handed
little Sarah Anne to her friend. "Get in, Sally dear, and I'll run you
home. I'm taking the children over to Mother Hunter's for the day." She
steadied Sarah and her burden to a seat and then tucked herself neatly
in, and started her bright vehicle competently. "Well, I don't know....
It's all very fine, of course, but I can think of a good deal she hasn't
got!"

"Oh, of course ..." said the music teacher. After a moment she sighed.
"Poor old Marty.... Well, we can't lead other people's lives for them,
can we?"

"No, we can't," Mrs. Edward R. admitted, contentedly. She bowled Sarah
smoothly back to the burlapped studio in time for the eleven-twenty
pupil.

* * * * *

Jane, meanwhile, after wiring to Sarah, flew to Michael Daragh with her
joyful tidings and lunched with him and Emma Ellis at Hope House. The
Irishman, who had read the little play and knew its clean verv