Molly Make-Believe

through the fireplace; a shadow black as a bear's cave under the table. Nothing in all the cavernous r

iece of china instead of a human being Carl St

hollow of his back a red-hot plaster fumed and mulled and sucked at the pain like a hideously poisoned fang trying to gnaw-gnaw-gnaw its way in. Worse than this; e

risp letter rustled not softly like a lady's ski

not at all unlike a thicket of twigs stripped fro

t it. In the first place, you understand that I greatly dislike letter-writing. In the second place you know Jacksonville quite as well as I do, so there is no use whatsoever in wasting either my time or yours in purely geographical descriptions. And in the third place, you ought to be bright enough to comprehend

m not willing to literally promise even that. Mother indeed thinks that we o

umatism is very much be

ily y

rne

diculous circular which was handed to me yesterday at the Woman's Exch

rth filching out of the prosy text to tuck away in the pockets of his mind for his memory to munch on in its hungry hours. Now everybody who knows anything at all knows perfectly well that even a business letter does not deserve the paper which it is written on unless it contains at least one significant phrase that is worth waking up in the night to remember and think about. And as to the Lover who does not w

until the janitor wandered casually in about three o'clock and wrung a piercing little wisp of flame out of the electric-light bulb over the sick man's head, and raised him clumsily out of his soggy pillows and fed him indolently with a sad, thin soup. Worst of all, four times in the dreadful interim between breakfast and supper the postman's thrilly footsteps soared

rves to the mercy of a gritty blanket or a wrinkled sheet. Pain came too, in its most brutally high night-tide; and sweat, like the smother of furs in summer; and thirst like the scrape of hot sand-paper; and chill like the clammy horror of raw fish. Then, just as the mawkish cold, gray dawn came nosing over the house-tops, and the poor fellow's mind had reached the point where the slam of a window or the ripping creak of a fl

st to find the pleasant yellow sunshine mottling his dingy carpet like a tortoise-shell cat. Instinctiv

instead the tiny circular to which

ly quirky typography suggested at once the audaciously original work of some young art student who was fairly splashing her way along the road to fi

AL-LETTE

rtainment Furnis

and all Lon

Let

r

ary Pe

al as a Message from your Best Friend. Offering all the Satisfaction of receiv

LE L

om a Japan

nd Sandal Wood. Vivid with purple and orange and scarlet. Lavishly intersp

from a l

rdy. Very spunky.

om a Littl

shioned. Daintily Dream

om a Banda

an the Sea. Sharper than Coral. Unmitigat

m a Gray-Pl

with wood-lore. Prowly. Scampery. Deliciously wild. Apt to be

from You

cal Cha

tent. Historically reasonable. Most

Let

ades: Shy. Mediu

of invalidism, the presumable severity of illness. For price list, etc., refer t

e crumpled up the circular into a little gray wad, and presse

uls who will-cannibals and rodents and kiddies. All the same-" he ruminated suddenly: "All the same I'

ough!" h

ce of the subscription. How the pink-cheeked high school girls elbowed each other to get a peep at the post-mark! How the-. Better still, perhaps some hopelessly unpopular man in a dingy city office would go running up the last steps just a little, wee bit faster-say the second and fourth Mondays in the month-because of even a bought, made-up letter from Mary Queen of Scots that he knew absolutely without slip or blunder would be waiting there for him on his dusty, ink-stained desk am

ighs, through his tortured back, through his cringing neck, till the whole reeking misery seemed to foam and froth in his brain in an utter frenzy of furious resentment. Again the day dragged by with maddening monotony

traces of the pain and left the doctor still m

lia did n

he would not forget her. Not even surprise, not even curiosity, tempted Stanton to wade twice through the fashionable, angular handwriting. Dully impersonal, bleak as the s

o plausible ways in which to treat such a letter. One way was with anger. One way was wit

errier. After a messy minute or two he successfully excavated the crumpled little gray tissue circular and smoothed it out carefull

all, perhaps I have misjudged Cornelia. Maybe it's only that s

few exclamations he proceeded to write out

ition de luxe' subscription to one of your love-letter serials. (Any old ardor that comes most convenient) Approximate age of victim: 32. Business status: rubber broker. Prevalent tastes: To be abl

uly your

was just the amount that I was planning to spend on a turquoise-studded belt for Cornelia's birthday; but if Cornelia's brains really need mor

the thought impatiently aside he sank back luxuriantly again into his pillows, and grinned without any perceptible effort at all as he planned adroitly how he would paste the Serial Love Letters one by one into the gaudiest looking scrap-book that he could find and present it to Cornelia on her birthday as a text-book

excitement, he drowsed off to sleep for as long

tty cold. Puckered with chills and goose-flesh, the fireside people huddled and sneezed around their respective hearths. Shivering like the ague between his cotton-flannel blankets, Stanton's courage fairly raced the mercury in its downward course. By noon his teeth were chattering like

lurted in from the frigid hall with a great gus

-wrapper with an astonishingly strange, blurry pattern of green and red against a somber background

intimately. But it was not signed