you do or undertake.
Write to me as often as you can, and tell me the good things
that happen, and the funny things, too; for I enjoy them
all, and your letters are precious to me beyond anything
that the days bring. Go right on, True; don't let anything I
say make you hesitate for a moment. I am away off here,
dreaming idle dreams, while you are there and see and know.
I am sure you will do what is best--you always do; and
remember that, whatever comes, I am, now and forever, your

"DOROTHY."

IV

SOME PREMIUMS

It was decided to make Perner the editor. This decision was reached
during a lunch on Twenty-third Street, where the proprietors of the
"Whole Family" met one day some weeks after the initial dinner. A number
of brief and informal meetings had been held, and a liberal amount of
talk expended, besides the continuous discussion and badinage in the
studio where Livingstone, Van Dorn, and Perner still worked, though in a
manner disheartening to their publishers. The idea of starting a vast
enterprise with little or no capital had in it something very
fascinating to the bohemian temperament, while the consideration of its
unique phases and the more or less appropriate premiums to be offered,
afforded never-ending amusement. Work lagged, while hope tinted the air
rose-color, and the god of mirth perched by the side of Venus Milo on
the mantelpiece.

Livingstone, it is true, had begun, and with fine enthusiasm at first, a
picture of the bread line as they had seen it on New Year's eve. The
sketch was on canvas, and strong in composition and feeling. The others
came over and stood one on either side of him and said so. They said so
more than once, and with various degrees of emphasis. Perhaps this
satisfied Livingstone, for after that his interest in the undertaking
became that of a spectator also. The canvas stood on an easel in one
corner, and served as a diversion when the "Whole Family" topic was for
the moment exhausted.

But one day Barrifield came over just before noon, and announced that
they should organize forthwith. He had been investigating certain
premium articles, a number of which he had in his pockets. He said it
was necessary to have some definite address, and whoever was to be
editor should be chosen, that he might begin to cast about for desirable
features. So they drifted over to the Twenty-third Street place to "eat
things and talk," as Liv