After the noonday meal the three zealous toilers in the paths of literature began work. Quincy read from the manuscript, Rosa held the proofs, while Alice listened intently, and from time to time made changes in punctuation or slight alterations in the language. No sentence had to be rewritten, and when the reading of the story, Was It Signed? was finished, Rosa said, "A remarkably clean set of proofs; only a few changes, and those slight ones. In the case of very few authors are their original ideas and second thoughts so harmonious. How do you manage it, Miss Pettengill?"
"Oh, I don't know," replied Alice, with a smile, "unless it is that I keep my original ideas in my mind until they reach the stage of second thoughts, and then I have them written down."
"You will find Miss Pettengill very exact in dictation," said Quincy to Rosa. "I took that long story there down in pencil, and I don't think I was obliged to change a dozen words."
"To work with Miss Pettengill," remarked Rosa, "will be more of a pleasure than a task."
This idea was re-echoed in Quincy's mind, and for a moment he had a feeling of positive envy towards Miss Very. Then he thought that hers was paid service, while his had been a labor—of love. Yes, it might as well be put that way.
The sun had sunk quite low in the west when the second story, Her Native Land, was completed. "How dramatic!" cried Rosa; "the endings of those chapters are as strong as stage tableaus."
"It is being dramatized by Jameson of the 'Daily Universe,'" said Quincy.
"I am well acquainted with Mr. Jameson," remarked Rosa; "I belong to a social club of which he is the president. He is a very talented young man and a great worker. He once told me that when he began newspaper work he wrote eighteen hours out of twenty-four for a month, and nearly every night he woke up and made notes that he wrote out in the morning. Do you believe in unconscious mental cerebration, Mr. Sawyer?"
"I'm afraid not," replied Quincy, laughing; "I never had ideas enough to keep my brain busy all day, much less supply it with work at night."
"Mr. Sawyer is always unfair to himself," remarked Alice to Miss Very. "As for myself, I will answer your question in the affirmative. I have often gone to bed with only the general idea of a story in my mind, and have awakened with the details all thought out and properly placed."