are many unpleasant things
about it,--some, I suspect, that you don't tell me of,--and
that it isn't altogether the money that bothers you; but you
must put up with the burden and suspense a little longer,
and with Bates, who must be a dreadful nuisance, though he
surely means well and works hard to get so much advertising.
I should love to meet the Colonel. The first little sketch
you sent me of him I have pinned up over my desk, and when I
read your letters about him I look up at it and laugh and
imagine just how he looks and acts. What a beautiful model
he must make for the picture, and how glad I am you are
working at it so enthusiastically again! Perhaps that is one
reason why you are less interested in the paper, and worried
over the annoyances that must always come with the more
practical pursuits of life.

"You see, True, I think a good deal about all these things,
and I realized even from the first that a nature like yours
is not at all suited to hard and shrewd commercial
enterprise, though this is not quite that, either, and the
hard days will soon be over. Work right along on the
picture, True, but don't think of giving up your interest in
the paper. The picture will rest and comfort you now, and
the paper will furnish the means of rest and comfort by and
by. Then, when that time comes, perhaps I shall be able to
add happiness to your life, too, and together in our
beautiful home we will add happiness to the lives of others.
Good-by, True. Stick fast, and remember that I am

"Always your
"DOROTHY.

"P.S. True, I can send the money any time, and you must let
me do it if you find it will be needed. I do not offer it as
assistance, but _claim the opportunity of investment_.

"DORRY."

XIII

THE HOUR OF DARK FOREBODING

With the first days of September the tension became more severe. Bills
sprang up from every quarter like mushrooms, and while no one of them
was very large the accumulation was considerable. The humors of the
enterprise were not altogether lost sight of, however, and still
furnished some relief, though there was a manifest touch of bitterness
in many of their whimsicalities. There were moments of individual doubt
and discouragement also--not as to the final outcome, but as to their
ability to exist until such time as the crumbs