nearly
half an hour, without bringing forth a word. First, there was the
question of form: she considered, then abruptly dismissed, the idea of
writing verses: the rhymes with love and dove, and heart and part,
which could have been managed, were, she felt, too silly and
sentimental to be laid before her quizzical audience. Next, what to
write about--a simple theme, such as a fairy-tale, was not for a moment
to be contemplated. No, Laura had always flown her hawk high, and she
was now bent on making a splutter. It ended by being a toss-up between
a play in the Shakesperian manner and a novel after Scott. She decided
on the novel. It should be a romance of Venice, with abundant murder
and mystery in it, and a black, black villain, such as her soul
loved--no macaroon-nibblers or rompers with children for her! And
having thus attuned her mind to scarlet deeds, she set to work. But she
found it tremendously difficult to pin her story to paper: she saw
things clearly enough, and could have related them by word of mouth;
but did she try to write them down they ran to mist; and though she
toiled quite literally in the sweat of her brow, yet when the eventful
day came she had but three niggardly pages to show for her pains.

About twenty girls formed the Society, which assembled one Saturday
evening in an empty music-room. All were not, of course, equally
productive: some had brought it no further than a riddle: and it was
just these drones who, knowing nothing of the pother composition
implied, criticised most stringently the efforts of the rest. Several
members had pretty enough talents, Laura's two room-mates among the
number: on the night Laura made her debut, the weightiest achievement
was, without doubt, M. P.'s essay on "Magnanimity"; and Laura's eyes
grew moist as she listened to its stirring phrases. Next best--to her
thinking, at least--was a humorous episode by Cupid, who had a gift
that threw Laura into a fit of amaze; and this was the ability to
expand infinitely little into infinitely much; to rig out a trifle in
many words, so that in the end it seemed ever so much bigger than it
really was--just as a thrifty merchant boils his oranges, to swell them
to twice their size.

Laura being the youngest member, her affair came last on the programme:
she had to sit and listen to the others, her cheeks hot, her hands very
cold. Presently all were done, and then Cupid, who was chairman, called
on "a new author, Rambotha