The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1896-05-20

patience had stood the test of my en-
doavors.
:" The note ran something like this
Il wrote under a nom de plume): { My
dear Miss -, | am sorry to return
your story. 1t has many fine points.
The plot is excellent, and the language
more than commonly good; but it is
II you Will allow me to say it-dread-
fully stiff and unnatural. Could YOU
not manage to throw little more heart
into your stories? Suppose you take
some one character, or incident, or
place that interests you personally, and
write about it just as though you meant
1t ALL And the note was signed simply,
THE Editor.
L sat for some time bordering over
the note. A great struggle was taking
place within me. Should | do it?
Could l endure to see in cold black and
white this sweet, painful secret that
was at once my delight and my torture?
AT last l resolved 1 would throw more
heart-my whole heart-into my story.
l would feel and mean it all.
81 conceived a brilliant idea. l
would just run down to Aunt Harriets
for a couple of weeks, where 1 should
be away from social temptations, aud
where, in perfect quiet, my story might
grow.
"Oh, those precious weeks-so full
of pain and pleasure, of happy memo
ries, Of signs and moods, of life and
Lowell My story grew, nay, it ceased
to be a story at all. 1 was not writ
ing. was thinking, living, loving far
away in an ideal world where l was
happy, oh, so happy, and 1 merely
jottedit down just for sweet memory's
sake.
"And when had finished my tale,
how real it seemed So real, in fact,
that L wondered whether a strangers
eye might not even read between its
lines and guess my secret.
"Should l send it? Yes, what matter
The world would never know. There
was only my nom de plume; my hero
was not Ned nor my heroine Jess
music, and Lakewood would never
recognize itself among the snow-clad
hills of New England. So l sent my
story. Where do you suppose? To Ned &.
Right plump into the hands of Ned.
"Jessl" L exclaimed. She was
laughing, and for the life of me, could
not tell whether to believe her or to
give her sound shaking for screwing
my curiosity to its utmost limits, only
to make fun of me.
Eyes, to Ned" Jess continued,
though of course / did not mean it SO.
/ addressed my manuscript as usual to
THE Editor but what little word
that is after all. THE Editor and Ned
were one.
"My story was accepted and it
brought great price-it brought me
Ned's heart. Love, that had peeped
over my shoulder and guided my pen
as l wrote, now peeped over Ned's
shoulder and whispered in his ear, in
his heart, in his soul; and he has told
me many times how that soft whisper
seemed to food all his lonely life with
sunshine, and to fill all the air about
him with the song of birds. Through
every disguise he had known me. Dear
Ned, he had loved me from the first
and had never guessed it. l was rich
and he was poor, with perhaps years of
struggling before him, and he was too
noble to speak. But happy turn in his
lifes fortune brought this editorial po-
sition within his grasp. From that
time he felt that perhaps some day be
would meet me again, and perhaps
but there, what's the use of perhaps
ing For all know, we might have
been waiting and longing and signing
yet, if L hadn't made love- first
which, of course, you'll allow that
did,"
1 was about to reply when Jess sprang
up from the hammock with cry Of
"There's Ned!' She forgot all about
me and ran to meet him, and well
what would you have done under the
circumstances? - Grace S. Brown, il
the Monthly illustrator.