November 17th.
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
Such a blight has fallen over my literary career. I don't know whether to tell you or not, but I would like some sympathy—silent sympathy, please; don't reopen the wound by referring to it in your next letter.
I've been writing a book, all last winter in the evenings, and all summer when I wasn't teaching Latin to my two stupid children. I just finished it before college opened and sent it to a publisher. He kept it two months, and I was certain he was going to take it; but yesterday morning an express parcel came (thirty cents due) and there it was back again with a letter from the publisher, a very nice, fatherly letter—but frank! He said he saw from the address that I was still at college, and if I
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