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CI.B310S47
Vol. VIII
No. 12
In Quest of a Story
(Biograph) By JANET REID
Arline sat, pen poised fresco ceilingward, eyes probing the misty draperies for inspiration. It remained aloof, and the fair authoress rose from her dainty escritoire in weary disgust. Fame was not always comfortable, she considered, with a yearning recollection of her obscurity, and being in demand, editorially, was often irksome. Particularly when one's brain was as vapid as dish-water, and one's ideas conspicuous by their absence.
From her window she faced a goodly view of the umbrageous park, with its smooth sweeps of drive and its motley motor procession. Not there did Inspiration hover, gossamer-winged. The smug surety of it all oppressed the youthful genius, and the wild rose-wings of Romance seemed stifled and obscured. Arline sighed dejectedly, then her face lit with one of her rare, illuminating smiles.
"Nell!" she exclaimed happily; "that's where I'll go. I've never been there yet that I haven't returned and written something vital — something that has wrung tears of blood even from saturate, editorial souls. Things are so throbbingly real down there — the thin, pitiful rags seem to expose the living hearts beneath with
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all their burdening, human secrets. There, if anywhere, lies hid the heartbeat of the race !
Arline Wade had been favored of Fortune as well as gifted of the gods. Early in her youth, discovering the treasure within her, she began sending forth her messages to the world, and, wondrous fact, the world had paused to listen. Perhaps, being a judicial old world, it was because she had something to say : richness and wonder of youth — the first-fruits of experience — glamorous, unmarred romantic faith — and, best of all, a boundless, enveloping, humanitarian pity. Most of her time away from her work, which popularity had made pressing, was spent in the slum districts. Not, be it said, as the airy dispenser of other people's bounty, but as the free giver of her own heart and cheer and tears and aching sympathy. And she sorrowed most of all, as she loved the most dearly, Nell Adams and her sister, Margaret. Nell was blind — hopelessly so, the Settlement doctor said. Therefore Nell, with inner vision undisturbed, looked out upon life with a rare fund of humor and a splendid, imaginative ability. She even persuaded Margaret, as they toiled over multitudinous paper flowers for a