"Hope you notice the dash under the `short'! No chance for your novel, my dear. He doesn't see himself sitting down to read hundreds of pages of your appalling fist. Grows more like lattice-work every day!" Philippa cried severely. "I can just imagine what he is like! A proper little person, with a shiny bald head. Fancy writing love-scenes for his inspection! My hat!" and Madge lengthened her chin in an expressive grimace. "The worst of it is, I don't know what to send. I have nothing short that's good enough. It ought to be striking, arresting, original. I--I want an idea," cried poor Theo, staring frantically at the coffee-cups, and wrinkling her brow until she looked ten years older on the spot. "It's finding a subject that is the hardest part. I love the writing when I'm once well started. I can't possibly send anything before next week." "Don't try. Take your time, and do your very best. Send a letter to say you will forward a MS in the course of the next few weeks. It's important that you should send your best work, and you can't write happily with a feeling of hurry. It must be a story, of course, not an article." "Mind you have a nice hero: six feet high--broad shoulders--big moustache--" "No, no; clean shaven--clean shaven, with a firm, determined chin; big feet and hands, quick-tempered, but too sweet for anything to the girl he loves." "Make her slim and willowy, with grey eyes; rather wistful-looking, not exactly pretty, but with `a way with her' that simply mows 'em down!" "Give her some spirit, mind!" cried Madge once more. "I hate your mawkish heroines--sort of creature you would call `The Maiden.' Don't call her `The Maiden,' Theo, if you wish me to buy a copy; and whatever you do, I pray and beseech you, don't write in the present tense: `I am leaning against a stile; the roses are falling in heavy clusters by my side; the rays of the sun are pouring on my uncovered head and turning to gold the wayward curls which refuse to lie straight despite all my efforts.' Don't you know the kind of thing! I feel inclined to throw a book in the fire when it begins like that. Don't let your heroine have `wayward curls,' Theo. Don't let her have `little tendrils wandering over her brow.' Don't say in every chapter that `she had never looked more lovely;' and for goodness' sake don't let the husband and wife behave like idiots, and quarrel all the time, though they are really expiring of love!" "Well, really! Any more instructions? It's a pity you don't write the whole thing while you are about it," said Theo testily as she pushed her choir from the table.