“Miss Emily B. Starr,
“Shrewsbury, P.E. Island,
“Can.“Dear Miss Starr:
“It gives us great pleasure to tell you that your poem, Owl’s Laughter has been found available for use in Garden and Woodland. It appears in the current issue of our magazine, a copy of which we are sending you. Your verses have the true ring and we shall be glad to see more of your work.
“It is not our custom to pay cash for our contributions but you may select two dollars’ worth of seeds or plants from our catalogue to be sent to your address prepaid.
“Thanking you,“We remain,“Yours truly,Thos. E. Carlton & Co.”
Emily dropped the letter and seized upon the magazine with trembling fingers. She grew dizzy—the letters danced before her eyes—she felt a curious sensation of choking—for there on the front page, in a fine border of curlicues, was her poem—Owl’s Laughter, by Emily Byrd Starr.
It was the first sweet bubble on the cup of success and we must not think her silly if it intoxicated her. She carried the letter and magazine off to her room to gloat over it, blissfully unconscious that Aunt Ruth was doing an extra deal of sniffing. Aunt Ruth felt very suspicious of suddenly crimsoned cheek and glowing eye and general air of rapture and detachment from earth.
In her room Emily sat down and read her poem as if she had never seen it before. There was, to be sure, a printer’s error in it that made the flesh creep on her bones—it was awful to have hunter’s moon come out as hunter’s moan—but it was her poem—hers—accepted by and printed in a real magazine.
And paid for! To be sure a check would have been more acceptable—two dollars all her own, earned by her own pen, would have seemed like riches to Emily. But
