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 I don't want heroes and heroines any more—people are quite good enough.' She realized abruptly that if this were true she would probably never again write the ordinary salable story, for which she could be sure of a place in a dozen different magazines. What, then, would she write or would she never write again? Her 'Intimate Sketches' had, she knew, not only been acceptable to Mr. Fox's high standards of taste, but had been the outstanding feature of the 'Journal' for the last six months. Letters came every day addressed to 'Tempus Fugit.' Most of them began, 'Dear Sir,' but there were several 'Dear Mr. Fugit'; and one lady, after some literary discussion, had facetiously addressed the unknown critic as her 'Dear Tempus.' Why she had taken this name she could not say...something to do with Roger Cuncliffe. And as she looked out at the Common she saw the sky was beginning to color faintly in the west, far out beyond the Back Bay, the blue hills, and the reaches of the Charles River. She thought of the statues in Roger Cuncliffe's Italian garden, and how in such a light the nymph assumed the tints of life. Who now had the little Villa Poppea, now that Roger lay stretched under the earth he had adored. Had they put the satyr's head back again? Had they dismissed the servants and sold the pony and broken the delicate fine Venetian goblets?

She might study, become a scholar even as Sears Ripley would wish, and give up fiction. But she had not a scholarly nature and she knew it. Well, then—fiction. But not for the 'Godey's Book,' not for