were in it for the fun they got out of it or for a certain prestige they fancied they would gain from these weekly meetings at the home of the popular wife of a popular professor. These slackers were constantly bringing excuses for plots when their time came to read, or trying to work off on the club old essays and theses on various subjects not in the least related to fiction.

“You are to read this evening, I believe, Mary,” said Molly to Mary Neil as the library filled. “You missed last time and so got put on this week.”

“Yes—I—that is—you see, I sat up all night trying to finish a story but couldn’t get it to suit me.”

“Did you bring it?”

“Oh no, it was too much in the rough.”

“That’s too bad, Mary!” cried Lilian Swift. “There are plenty of us who had things to read and you cut us out of the chance.”

“Surely some of you must have brought things,” said Molly, trying not to smile, knowing full well that in almost every pocket of the really and truly “Would-be’s” some gem of purest ray serene in the shape of a manuscript was only waiting to be dived for. The self-conscious expression on at least a dozen faces put her mind at rest in regard to the program of the evening.

“It seems I have the appointing of a chairman for the meeting in my power, since the other reader has fallen out of the running,” said Molly, looking as severely as she could look at the sullen, handsome Mary Neil, “so I appoint Billie McKym.”

Billie, a most ardent scribbler, had been drawn into the procession of short-story fiends by her dear friend Thelma Larson, who was destined to become famous as a writer of fiction. Billie had no great talent but she possessed a fresh breezy line of dialogue that covered a multitude of sins in the way of plot formation, motivation, crisis, climax and what not.

“Remember, Billie, the chair is not the floor,” teased one of the members.

Billie was a great talker and although she was no pronounced success as a writer of fiction, she was a good critic of the performance of others.

“Just for that I’ll ask you, Miss Smarty, to serve as vice, and when I have something important to say I’ll put you in the chair for keeps.”

“Oh, let Mrs. Green begin and stop squabbling,” demanded a girl who had a plot she was dying to divulge and devoutly hoped she would be called on when their hostess got through.

“Then begin!” and Billie rapped for order.

Molly took her seat by the reading-lamp and opened her manuscript. Having to read before the club was just as exciting to Molly as to the veriest freshman. Her cheeks flushed and her hand trembled a wee bit.

“Silly of me to get stage fright but I can’t help it,” she laughed.

“How do you reckon we feel then?” drawled a little girl from Alabama, who only the week before had been torn limb from limb by the relentless “Would-be’s.”

“This is a story that I have sent on many a journey and it always comes back to its doting mother. I have received several personal letters about it——”

“Oh, wonderful!” came from several members.

“Only think, the most encouraging thing that has happened to me yet was once a Western magazine kept my manuscript almost three weeks,” sighed a willowy maiden.

“Now please criticize it just as severely as you can. I want to sell it, and something must be done to it before the editors will take it,” begged Molly, getting over her ridiculous stage fright.

“Fire away!” said parliamentary Billie.

“How long is it?” asked Lilian Swift.

“About five thousand words, I think!”

“Whew!” blew the girl who hoped to get her plot in edgewise.

There was a general laugh and then Molly cleared her throat for action. “First, let me tell you I saw a clipping in the New York Times asking for Fairy Godmothers for the soldiers. That was what put the idea in my head. The title is: ‘Fairy Godmothers Wanted.’”

You could have heard a pin drop while Molly read, and occasionally one did hear the scratching of a pencil wielded by a member who was on a critical war-path.

CHAPTER IV
FAIRY GODMOTHERS WANTED

The ballroom was crowded but very quiet. The belle of the ball was the night nurse, deftly accomplishing the many duties that fall to the share of a night nurse. A letter must be written for a poor Gascon who had lost his right arm; a Bedouin chief must be watered every five minutes; a little red-headed Irishman begging for morphine to ease his pain, and a sad Cockney lad sobbing because he was “’omesick for ’Ammersmith,” must be comforted.

The beautiful old château had been converted into a hospital early in the war and the salle de bal was given over to the convalescents. The convalescent male is a very difficult proposition, and the little nurse sometimes felt her burden was greater than she could bear. There was so much to do for these sick soldiers besides nurse them. One thing, she must good-naturedly submit to being made love to in many different languages. She could stand all but the Bedouin chief.

“He seems so like our darkeys at home,” she had whispered to the one American who was getting well rather faster than he liked to admit.

This American wanted to get well and be back in the trenches, but who was to make love to the pretty night nurse in good old American when he left the convalescent ward?

“You promised to do something for me to-night. Don’t forget! You must be almost through with all of these fellows.”

“Ready in a minute!” She flitted down between the rows of cots, tucking in the covers here, plumping up a pillow there. The Bedouin was watered for the last time that night and finally closed his rolling black eyes.

“Now, what is it?” she asked, sinking down on a stool by the American’s bed, which was placed in an alcove at one end of the great salon. “If it is writing a letter, thank goodness, it won’t have to be in the second person singular in French. Why do you suppose they teach us such formal French at school? I can’t tutoyer for the life of me.”

“Same here! Je t’aime’s all I know. But I don’t want you to write a letter for me. I want you to read some. But first I must know your really truly name. I—I—like you too much just to have to call you nurse.”

“Mary Grubb!”

“No! Not really?”

“Yes! I’d like to know what is the matter with my name. It is a perfectly good name, I reckon.”

“Yes, Mary is beautiful—but—the other! Never mind, you can change it.”

“I have no desire to do so, at least not for many a day. I think Grubb is especially nice. It suggests Sally Lunn and batter bread.”

“There now, I would know you are from the South even if your dear little ‘reckons’ didn’t come popping out every now and then. Do you know, I have a friend who lives in Kentucky, and when the war is over I have been planning to go see her, but now—but now—I am afraid she won’t want to see me.”

“You mean the scars?” and she looked pityingly at the young man and put her firm little hand on his head. “Why, they will not amount to much. They will just make you look interesting. Your eyes will be well, I just know they will. Look at this long scar that has given the most trouble! It has turned to a pleasing pink and