“‘If I’d married him, he’”--would have done so and so or wouldn’t have done something else. No two ways about that! The consciousness of this stern and immutable fact is what makes Judge Trent’s life one long sensation of relief at having been refused. “The judge softly closed the door behind her. ‘There, but for the grace of God,’ he murmured devoutly, ‘goes Mrs. Calvin Trent.’ Then he returned to his desk, put on his hat, and sat down at his work.” Plots? There are hundreds of writers who can build twenty-story plots with express elevator service and private subway stations. There aren’t so many who can see people clearly and see them whole and set them down brightly on paper. Mrs. Burnham’s novels will be widely read and enjoyed for so long as she writes them and afterward for many a day. BOOKS BY CLARA LOUISE BURNHAM _The Quest Flower._ _Flutterfly._ _The Golden Dog._ _No Gentlemen_, 1882. _A Sane Lunatic_, 1883. _Dearly Bought_, 1884. _Next Door_, 1885. _Young Maids and Old_, 1886. _The Mistress of Beech Knoll_, 1887. _Miss Bagg’s Secretary_, 1892. _Dr. Latimer_, 1893. _Miss Archer Archer_, 1894. _Sweet Clover, a Romance of the White City_, 1894 _The Wise Woman_, 1895. _A Great Love_, 1898. _A West Point Wooing and Other Stories_, 1899. _Miss Pritchard’s Wedding Trip_, 1901. _The Right Princess_, 1902. _Jewel: a Chapter in Her Life_, 1903. _Jewel’s Story Book_, 1904. _The Opened Shutters_, 1906. _The Leaven of Love_, 1908. _Clever Betsy_, 1910. _The Inner Flame_, 1912. _The Right Track_, 1914. _Instead of the Thorn_, 1916. _Heart’s Haven_, 1918. _All of Mrs. Burnham’s books are published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston._ CHAPTER XXIII DEMETRA VAKA It is the commendable but not always fruitful practice of the publishing house of Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, to send to all its authors a folder calling for such particulars of their lives as may properly be matter of interest to the general public. In 1914 or thereabouts one of these fact requisitions went to the author Demetra Vaka, otherwise Mrs. Kenneth Brown. In due time it came back to Boston bearing the following data, inscribed in a feminine hand that no school-master could conscientiously praise: _Name in full_: Demetra Kenneth Brown. _Chief occupation or profession_: Wife. _Residence & address_: Green Lane Cottage, Mount Kisco, New York. _Place of birth_: Island of Bouyouk Ada, Sea of Marmora. _Date of birth_: 1877. _Education, when and where received, in detail_: First privately. Then at Athens Private School. Paris. Various convents. Courses at Sorbonne. One year University of Athens. One year University of New York. Various schools in Constantinople, too many to remember, using schools as frivolous women use garments--throwing away when not becoming. _Date of marriage_: 1904, April 21. _Military, political and civic record_: No records whatever except of bad temper.