r knew what became of them. Later in the day she
described her morning's adventure to Angelica, and asked her if she
knew who Mrs. Merton Merivale was.

"Oh, that woman in the princess bonnet with the big Alsatian bow, you
know," Angelica said. "Mr. Alfred Cayley Pounce's sometime
intellectual affinity."

"Poor Alfred! he is too crude!" Beth ejaculated. "How I have outgrown
him!"

* * * * *

Ideala called next day, and found Angelica alone. "I hear that Beth is
with you?" she said. "What is she doing?"

"Writing a book."

"What kind of a book?"

"Not a book for babes, I should say," said Angelica. "She does not
pretend to consider the young person in the least. It is for parents
and guardians, she says, not for authors, to see to it that the books
the young person reads are suitable to her age. She thinks it very
desirable for her only to read such as are; but personally she does
not see the sense of writing down to her, or of being at all cramped
on her account. She means to address mature men and women."

"That is brave and good," said Ideala. "What is the subject?"

"I don't know," said Angelica; "but she is certain to put some of
herself into it."

"If by that you mean some of her personal experiences, I should think
you are wrong," said Ideala. "Genius experiences too acutely to make
use of its own past in that way; it would suffer too much in the
reproduction. And besides, it can make better use and more telling of
what it intuitively knows than of what it has actually seen."

"I do not think you believe that Beth will succeed," said Angelica.

"On the contrary," Ideala rejoined, "I expect her success will be
unique; only I don't know if it will be a literary success. Genius is
versatile. But we shall see."

Having finished her book, Beth collected her friends and read it aloud
to them. "I don't know what to think of it," she said. "Advise me. Is
it worth publishing, or had I better put it aside and try again?"

"Publish it, by all means," was the unanimous verdict; and Mr. Kilroy
took the manuscript himself to a publisher of his acquaintance, who
read it and accepted it.

"Oh," Beth exclaimed, when she heard the reader's report, "I do know
now what is meant by all in good time! If I had been able to publish
the first things I wrote, how I should have regretted it now! And I
did think so much of myself at that time, too! You should have heard
how I dogmatised to S