aid Bobs, in italics.

"I intended not to tell any one until it was published, but since Jerry
has seen fit to tell...." Jane began, flushed and angry.

"Jane! how wonderful! What is it about?"

Jane shrugged her shoulders.

"Jerry, what's it about?" Bobs demanded.

"I don't know--I haven't read it."

"Haven't read it? Why not?"

"She hasn't asked me to."

"Why, Jerry! I thought you didn't want me to," exclaimed Jane.

"Let me tell you one thing, Jane Judd, I'll not leave this house until I
have a copy in my hands. I'd rather read a book by you! Why, Jane, you
old sphinx, how could you do it? Tell me the whole thing."

"She won't tell you a word. I had to drag it out of her," Jerry
remarked.

"Very well, you tell me," Bobs ordered.

Jerry smiled.

"It's quite a drama. The first act set is little town. Heroine in
pigtails, yearning with ambition to be George Sand or George Eliot or
some of the great female scribblers. Encouraged by doting mother, she
writes essays on Spring. Act two, plays in the great, cruel city.
Heroine, orphaned and penniless, comes to fight for fame. Like the poor
match-girl, she knows hunger and cold, while she peddles her works--in
vain. Am I accurate, Jane?"

"Quite," she said calmly.

"She is forced to take a mere job to buy food. Enter a brilliant but
impoverished artist, with the job in his right hand. Heroine toils by
day that she may create by night. Midnight oil, cold tenement room, you
know. Abraham Lincoln stuff."

"Jane, while you were working for all of us, did you write, too?"

Jane nodded.

"Don't interrupt, Bobs. Enter hero--a great critic--a literary light.
Reads heroine's work--hails her genius of the age--rushes her to
publishers, who press gold upon her and accept her immortal opus!"

He paused to inspect Jane, who smiled at him.

"Go on with act three. That's only two acts," cried Bobs.

"Act three isn't written yet. It develops story of insignificant
husband, formerly brilliant but impoverished artist, and the chie-ild."

"Well, well, well!" said Bobs. "I never was so excited. I always knew
you'd create something, Jane, and now...."

"May I call attention to her other creation--Mr. Jerry Paxton Jr.?" said
Jerry.

"He's important, but anybody can have a baby and so few people can write
books!" said Bobs.

"You women! I reverse it! Anybody can write a book, but so few women can
have a son like Jerry. That's the set of volumes I wish her to
comple