aid Jane, slipping her hand through Sarah's arm. "Sally, I've
just been telling Marty that I'm going away for a while."

"Jane Vail! Going _away_? What for? Where?" She stood still on the
sidewalk, exploding into tiny, staccato sentences.

"To New York," Jane heard herself saying with entire conviction. "I'm
going away to work."

"To _work_?" They were all in the brightness of the street light now, and
Sarah brought her nearsighted gaze close to Jane's glowing face. "Have
you lost your senses?"

"Neither my senses nor my cosy little hundred-a-month," said Jane. "Come
along, people,--it's a scandalous hour." She started briskly up the
silent thoroughfare and the others followed. "No, it's really all quite
sane and simple." (The astounding thing was that she had known it less
than five minutes herself, and now it was a solid and settled fact to
her. Happily, gloriously, she didn't have to choose, after all. She
didn't have to be either a Nannie Slade Hunter or a Sally Farraday; there
was a chance to be something quite fresh and new.) "I'm going to _New
York_ to write. I mean, to see if I can write."

Martin Wetherby, heavily keeping step beside her, not even touching her
arm at crossings, was silent, but her best friend was vocal and vehement.

"Jane Vail! I never heard anything so--so far-fetched in all my life!
Going to _New York_ to write! Can't you write here in your own town, in
your own home? Of course you can. Why,--see what you've accomplished
already."

"I haven't accomplished anything, old dear, except a few papers for the
Tuesday Club and the Ladies' Aid, and----"

"You've had three stories accepted and published and one of them _paid
for_,--I think you've had a _great deal_ of encouragement, don't you,
Martin?"

The stout young man made a husky assent.

"But Sally, you don't realize the interruptions, the distractions----"

"Interruptions! Distractions!" Sarah cut in hotly. "Why, your Aunt Lydia
is perfectly wonderful about not letting you be disturbed! And anyhow--what
about Harriet Beecher Stowe, writing _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ with poverty and
sickness and a debilitating climate and seven children?"

"My good woman," said Jane, cautiously, "it's entirely possible that I
may not have exactly the same urge. I want to find out if I have any at
all." She slipped an arm through Sarah's and through Martin's and gave
each of them a gay little squeeze. "Don't be so horrified, old dears. It
isn't across th