lessly. "And now go on with that poor
little child what you took to your bosom."

"That's all." Constance choked painfully. "The baby--died while I was
telling her about the wonderful tree, and Santa Claus and the other joys
she should have had, and never did have. I can see that hideous empty
room, and--and that poor baby every time I shut my eyes."

"Here, look up now," Jock commanded, his feelings getting the best of
him. "When life's so empty that you can't find things to do by opening
your eyes, you better keep your eyes shut to all eternity. Calling up
the past is the rottenest kind of folly in a world where things is
happening."

Constance rallied to the stern call.

"And now," she said briskly, "I've given myself, heart and soul
to--literature. I'll _write_ of what I have seen, and lived!

"Listen, I'll read you a sketch or so. But first I'll explain. The local
colour of my novel is drawn from--here."

Jock pulled himself together.

"Well, I'll be blowed!" he sympathetically ejaculated, "Here where there
ain't, what you might say, enough local color to more than touch up the
noses of the Black Catters."

"Jock! Now, see if you'd know it." She read a scrappy description of the
village. "Would you recognize it?"

"With a footnote, it would go." Jock was all attention. "But I have my
doubts as to whether Pete Falstar will take kindly to his place of
residence being classified as a human pig-sty. That's laying the local
colour on, with a whitewash brush, don't you think? A little dirt and
disorder don't seem to call for such language."

"That is artistic license." Constance explained.

"Well, you ought to pay high for that kind of license--but maybe you do.
Go on."

"I handle my subject without gloves," Constance began again.

"By gosh! I'd keep 'em on when I was tackling pig-stys and such; but
don't mind me."

"And here; see if you can guess who this is?

"'The sleek, fat proprietor looked oily within and oily without. He
oozed oil on the community that he was demoralizing with his poisonous
whiskey and doctored beer.'"

"God bless and save us!" Jock rolled from side to side. "If you don't
beat all for gol-durned sass. Why, Tate will sue you for damages if that
great American novel ever strikes his vision. Oil! Thunderation; and
poisonous whiskey, and doctored beer. Was it Society or Settlement what
let light in on you, about such terms?"

"Neither. It's--inspiration."

"It's just plain impe