It had come in as hundreds of other things come in, had been read by the principal reader and had by him been handed directly to the editor, who accepted it without delay. The story was called _The Flowing Shoe-String_ and described the reformation, through love, of a charmingly untidy little literary genius. Mrs. Richmond remembers it very well! She found herself in rather notable company--Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, Frances E. Willard, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage and Russell Sage were other contributors to that Thanksgiving number. Very, very modest, and very, very busy, Mrs. Richmond did not deluge the editor with other work. In fact, seven whole years passed before she made her second appearance in the _Ladies’ Home Journal_, in 1898, with _A Silk-Lined Girl_. It was the Thanksgiving number again. The company had changed but was still notable; Henry M. Stanley, Caroline Atwater Mason and Mary E. Wilkins, now Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, were on the table of contents. This second bow was the real introduction to her audience. Since 1898 Mrs. Richmond has been among the magazine’s most steady and popular contributors. For twelve years, from 1902 to 1913, not a year went by when she was not represented in its pages. Her most successful work has had its first appearance there. May and June of 1902 brought to the _Journal’s_ readers the first of a series of tales about Juliet which became, in 1905, a book, _The Indifference of Juliet_. Juliet’s indifference was toward a young author in relation to the subject of marriage. Naturally interest in her did not stop with _The Indifference of Juliet_ and so, in 1907, her further experiences as communicated to the _Journal’s_ readers were published between covers under the title _With Juliet in England_. Mrs. Richmond is a doctor’s wife. In 1910 she created the character for whom she is most widely known and thanked--Redfield Pepper Burns, the generous, red-haired young doctor of uncertain temper and humane impulses of whom we haven’t heard the last yet. _Red Pepper Burns_ was followed by _Mrs. Red Pepper_ and _Red Pepper’s Patients_. But hold on--not so fast. In 1906, between the two Juliet books, Mrs. Richmond had given us the story of _The Second Violin_. In 1908 came _Around the Corner in Gay Street_, in 1909 _A Court of Inquiry_; there were also the two Christmas booklets--_On Christmas Day in the Morning_ (1908) and _On Christmas Day in the Evening_ (1910). Between _Red Pepper Burns_ and _Mrs. Red Pepper_ appeared _Strawberry Acres_ and a year after _Mrs. Red Pepper_ was published _The Twenty-fourth of June_. But this is becoming a mere catalogue, and the place for a list of Mrs. Richmond’s books is at the end of this chapter. What we want to do here is to consider her writing, or a few fragments of it as representative as may be, and try to see what she does and how she does it.