This morning, Mr. Black asked me if I would not request you to read over your letters and change them into proper form for a story, which he will be glad to publish serially in his magazine, if the finished product meets with his approval. This is a splendid opportunity for you, little daughter, and I advise you to grasp it. Are you disappointed to find that your talents do not lie along the psychological paths of lofty, intellectual labor? Does this story of your experiences of one summer seem too trivial for your effort? I think not, my dear, if the change in the tone of your letters can be depended upon for inference. We shall talk this over when I am once more at home, and can relieve my brave, strong girl of the burdens which she has borne for four long months. There was more in the letter, but Barbara did not read it. She danced about the hall with such abandon that her father opened his office door, and regarded her with amazement. “Has my housekeeper taken leave of her senses?” he asked affectionately. “On the contrary,” returned Barbara, saucily, “she has just regained them. Father dear, I realize that we must not all aspire to high tragedy or classic sublimity. High comedy seems to be more in my line.” Her father looked at her with his eyes softening more and more. “Come in here,” he said, and closed the door behind them. “Barbara, my dear,” he began, looking at her over his spectacles, “I have a kind of confession to make to you.” “Another one!” thought Barbara. “When you came home last June, things were a little hard for you, and seemed still harder, didn’t they?” “Well, rather!” said Barbara, slangily. “Your point of view was young and uncompromising, and—yes—rather toploftical.” “I know it.” Her father smiled. “You surveyed the world from a collegiate summit, and found it woefully lacking. Well, so it is lacking, but all the advice from all the lofty heights in the world will never make it better. We must come down into the plain, and struggle with the common herd, and help to raise it by our individual effort; glad to be a living, toiling part of great humanity, like every one else; never the isolated, censorious onlooker who does not share the common lot. This is one of the hardest lessons for youth to learn, and I have watched you learn it, during all these long, hard months.” “If I only have really learned it!” put in Barbara. “I have stood aside,” her father continued. “Sometimes I did not help you, even when I might, and you thought me undiscerning or abstracted. Barbara, my dear, you have done it all yourself, and I am very, very proud of my firstborn.” Barbara crimsoned with pleasure. “I’ve made awfully silly mistakes,” she said, “and you have been _so_ dear and patient.”