because an old
and intimate friend was backing it. That old and intimate friend was Mr.
Blount, and Molly had never guessed it.

Pretty soon it was time to go home. Molly found herself in the carriage,
trying to listen politely to the ceaseless flow of Miss Petit's
conversation, while she wrapped her old, gray eider-down cape about her
and thought and thought. Suddenly the words of Madeleine Petit pierced
her troubled mind.

"Do you write, Miss Brown? I wish I could. I'd like to try for some of
the prizes for short stories. Think of winning a thousand dollars for
one story! Wouldn't it be glorious? Then, there are some advertisement
prizes, too. One for five hundred dollars; think of that! I always cut
out every one I see, meaning to compete, but I never do. It isn't in my
line, you see. I'm going to major in mathematics."

Molly smiled that the dainty little creature should have chosen that
hated subject for her life's work.

"You say you saved the clippings about prizes?" she asked when they had
reached Madeleine's lodging.

"Oh, yes; I have them all in my room. Would you like to see some of
them? Tell the man to wait, and I'll bring them down."

Molly reached Queen's that night before the other girls, and hastening
to the student's lamp, she proceeded to look over the clippings.

One was from a leading woman's magazine; one from a magazine of short
stories; several from advertising firms--the best jingle about a stove
polish; the best catchy phrase about a laundry soap; the best
advertisement in verse or prose for a real estate company which had
purchased an entire mountain and was engaged in erecting numbers of
Swiss chalets for summer residents. The pictures of these pretty little
houses were very attractive. Many of them had poetical names. One of
them, called "The Chalet of the West Wind," occupied the centre of the
page. From its broad gallery could be seen a long vista of valley,
flanked by mountain ranges.

"What a charming place!" thought Molly, and that night she went to bed
with the "Chalet of the West Wind" so deeply photographed in her mind
that she almost felt as if she had been there herself. She could see it
perched on the side of the mountain, looking across the valley. It was
at the very edge of the forest. The picture showed that, and in her
imagination she scented the wild flowers that must grow at its feet in
the springtime. No doubt the west wind, which symbolized health and
happiness,