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 re-open the wound by referring to it
in your next letter.

I\'ve been writing a book, all last winter in the evenings, and all
the 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 would accept some advice, he would
suggest that I put all of my energy into my lessons and wait until I
graduated before beginning to write. He enclosed his reader\'s opinion.
Here it is:

`Plot highly improbable. Characterization exaggerated.
Conversation unnatural. A good deal of humour but not always
in the best of taste. Tell her to keep on trying, and in time
she may produce a real book.\'

Not on the whole flattering, is it, D............