There came, however, a season of stress and sorrow which drove me to self-expression. I scribbled a story or two, and found, eventually, that editors liked them. A prize came to me from a love-story contest in the Ladies' Home Journal, and I was much encouraged. After that, I wrote children's stories, a child's book, love stories; appearing at last in the pages of Harper's, Scribner's, the Saturday Evening Post, the Outlook, Collier's, and most of the women's magazines.
A series of novels followed. The first was "Glory of Youth," then "Contrary Mary," "Mistress Anne," "The Tin Soldier," "The Trumpeter Swan," "The Gay Cockade," "The Dim Lantern," and "Peacock Feathers."
Many of my books have Washington as a background, because I know it best, but whether I range from Boston and Nantucket to Maryland and the Chesapeake, or on to the Rockies and the Pacific Coast, I find that while people are modified by environment, they are fundamentally alike, and that the drama of life is as ancient as Genesis, and as modern as an airship.
