Page:All Kneeling (1928).pdf/255

 in to say good morning and good-by she returned his kiss warmly.

"Good-by, darlingest! Isn't it a day straight from heaven?" She kissed her, fluttered them toward the door, and, still smiling, drew out the next clipping.

"Ever since women discovered that novel-writing is infinitely preferable to housekeeping, and much less exacting, they have written innumerable stories. O Fair Dove, by Christabel Caine, is just another of them. The story, buried under would-be whimsicality, is ordinary, the characters are puppets, and the ending is a relief. The exhausted reader may well wonder whether he or the authoress has wasted the more time."

There was a pain in her chest. How could people be so unkind? How could even jealousy make them so cruel?" She was terribly, terribly hurt. Not that she minded honest criticism, she welcomed it, but this was wanton abuse. With hands that shook she tore the clipping into tiny pieces—tiny