Mr. Weil laughed, delightfully.
"Yes!" he explained. "What you need is a friend able to interest you, to begin with. Pardon me if I say I may be described by that phrase. Come to my hotel a little while and let us talk it over."
It was not an opportunity to be refused, in Roseleaf's depressed condition, and the two men walked together to the Hoffman House, where Mr. Weil at that time made his home.
CHAPTER II.
"WAS MY STORY TOO BOLD?"
"Well, Millie, your letter has come," said Mr. Wilton Fern, as he entered the parlor of his pleasant residence, situated about twenty miles from the limits of New York City. "Open it as quick as you can, and learn your fate."
His daughter started nervously from her seat near the window, where she had been spending the previous hour in speculations regarding the very missive that was now placed in her hands. She was a handsome girl, neither blonde nor brunette, with eyes of hazel gray and hair of that color that moderns call Titian red. She took the envelope that her father gave her, and though she wanted intensely to know the contents she hesitated to open it.
"Read it, Millie," smiled Mr. Fern. "Let us learn whether we have an authoress in our house who is destined to become famous."