"Come in to supper," he said. "You see, anything smaller than a Staten Island back-yard would hardly do for me to play in. Then there's a stillness about here that I like. It makes your ears ache a little at first. You wake up in the middle of the night and think you're under the earth somewhere, or disembodied. Finally it comes to you that there's nothing to be afraid of except the silence. A man's head gets to need it after a time. As a matter of fact, there's no place across the bay for a fat man after working hours." "Miss Linster," called Sister Annie as they entered. Paula followed the voice into a speckless spare room. "Supper will be served in a moment," the other said. "I just wanted to tell you--Tim will take you back to the city to-night, grateful for the chance, but do you really have to go? This little room is yours, and you can go over together in the morning. Then a night in this stillness will calm you back into a little girl. Tim doesn't know I'm asking you. Please do just as you want----" Paula didn't have the heart to drag the big brother back to town. "Why," she said laughingly, "I'd much rather stay than not. Think how good this all is to me! I didn't have an idea when he asked me, other than a restaurant somewhere in New York." "I am so glad.... Tim----" He tried not to look relieved at the announcement. "Really, I didn't put Annie up to this, but if you are content to stay, I think it will smooth you out a bit." After supper the three sat out in the yard. There was a heavy richness in the air, a soft sea-wind flavored with wood-fires and finished fields. Reifferscheid smoked his pipe and did most of the talking. "I glanced over Bertram Lintell's new book--out to-day," he said. "It sort of hurts. Two or three months ago, I dropped in on him while he was doing it.... I have always had a certain interest in Lintell because I accepted his first story seven or eight years ago, as a magazine reader.... You may not know that nine-tenths of the unsolicited fiction material in a magazine's mail is a personal affront to intelligence at large. Nowhere does a man show the youth of his soul so pitifully as when first alone with white paper and an idea. He shakes down a crow's rookery and believes in his heart it's an eagle's nest. That there are men in the world paid to open his package, inspect and return same respectfully--and do it again--is an uncommercial peculiarity of a most commercial age. Editors rely upon the more or less technically flawless products of the trained, the "arrived"; writers who have forgotten their dreams--rung the bell once or twice--and show a willingness to take money for the echoes.