Mrs. Macdonald was almost beside herself. She ceased to gird at any member of the family or household; she girded at Fate instead, morning, noon, and night. She discussed the situation in a frenzied manner, with tears in her eyes and a large amount of gesticulation, which would have formed an excellent object-lesson to a student for the stage; but, at the same time, it must be owned that raving appeals to the Almighty, passionate assertions that she was the most unlucky woman that the light of day had ever shone upon, bitter forebodings of what her daily life would be like when she was safely landed in the nearest workhouse, did not avail anything. No, the Macdonald family was in for a spell of bad luck, and all the asseverations in the world would not alter it or gainsay it. At this time Nancy was like a rock in the midst of a stormy sea. She, after much self-communing, threw over her promise to her mother concerning the time of her writing. She felt, as every true artist feels, that it was in her to do great things; and that even a little money earned in such a crisis would be of double value. So every moment that she could steal from the now greatly decreased house duties she spent in her own room, working with feverish haste and anxiety at a new story, a story which was not about lords and ladies, or majestic guardsmen, or lovely heroines in costly Parisian dresses; no, she felt, all in a moment, the utter futility of trying to draw a phase of life with which she herself was not familiar. It seemed to come to her like a flash of light that her children of pen and ink were not real; that she was fighting the air; that she was like an artist drawing without a model. Like a living human voice a warning came into her mind, "Write what you know; write what you see; before all things be an impressionist." So her new child was slowly coming to life, a child born in poverty and reared in a boarding-house. The form of the child was crude, and was the work of an unpractised hand; but it was strong. It was full of life; it was a thing alive; and as line after line came from under her hand, as the story assumed shape and colour from under her nervous fingers, Nancy Macdonald felt that she was on the right tack at last, that this time she would not fail. As soon as her story was done, she sent it with breathless hope to a well-known weekly magazine which is almost a household word, and then she sat down to wait. Oh! but it is weary waiting under such circumstances. After three days of sickening suspense, Nancy decided in her own mind that if she had to wait as many weeks she would be raving mad at the end of them. So she locked herself in her room and began another story, the story of a love affair which came about in just such a house as their own.