Molly Brown's College Friends. Speed Nell

Billie. “The one you put on for Great-aunt Gertrude? If it is that one, I won’t bet. I wouldn’t read a short story by a new writer for it.”

      “To return to my story,” pleaded Molly, “do you think if I rewrite it, leave out the letters, strengthen the plot a bit and make Polly a little wiser that I might sell it?”

      “Sure!” encouraged Lilian.

      “Yes, indeed!” echoed Nance.

      “And the black man – please cut him out! I can’t bear to think of him,” from the girl from Alabama.

      “Dialogue, – how about it?” asked the chairman.

      “Pretty good, but a little stilted,” was the verdict of several critics.

      “I think you are all of you simply horrid!” exclaimed Mary Neil, who had been silent and sullen through the whole evening. “I think it is the best story that has been read all year and I believe you are just jealous to tear it to pieces this way.”

      “Stuff and nonsense!” said Lilian.

      “We do hope we haven’t hurt your feelings, Mrs. Green,” cried the girl who was taking the correspondence course.

      “Hurt my feelings! The very idea! I read my story to get help from you and not praise. I am going to think over what you have said and do my best to correct the faults, if I come to the conclusion you are right.”

      “You would have a hard time doing what everybody says,” laughed Nance, “as no two have agreed.”

      “Well, I can pick and choose among so many opinions,” said Molly, putting her manuscript back in its big envelope. “I might do as my mother did when she got the opinion of two physicians on the diet she was to have: she simply took from each man the advice that best suited her taste and between the two managed to be very well fed, and, strange to say, got well of her malady under the composite treatment.”

      “Ahem!” said the girl with the burning plot, rattling her manuscript audibly so that the hardhearted Billie must perforce recognize her and give her the floor.

      CHAPTER VI

      “I HAD A LITTLE HUSBAND NO BIGGER THAN MY THUMB”

      “Aunt Nance, what’s the use you ain’t got no husband an’ baby children?” Mildred always said use instead of reason.

      “Lots of reasons!” answered Nance, smiling at her little companion. Mildred had moved herself and all her belongings into the guest-chamber. Her mother had at first objected, but when she found it made Nance happy to have the child with her, she gave her consent.

      “Ain’t no husbands come along wantin’ you?”

      “That is one of the reasons.”

      “I’m going to make Dodo marry you when he gets some teeth.”

      “Thank you, darling! Dodo would make a dear little husband.”

      “Dodo wouldn’t never say nothin’ mean to you. He’s got more disposition than any baby in the family.”

      “I am sure he wouldn’t,” said Nance, trying to count the stitches as she neatly turned the heel of the grey sock she was knitting. Nance was always knitting in those days.