Molly Make-Believe | Page 7

too much time, though, on this nonsense. What I really wanted to say to you was: Here are four--not 'sleeping potions', but waking potions--just four silly little bits of news for you to think about at one o'clock, and two, and three--and four, if you happen to be so miserable to-night as to be awake even then.
"With my love,
"MOLLY."
Whimsically, Stanton rummaged around in the creases of the bed-spread and extricated the little folded paper marked, "No. 1 o'clock." The news in it was utterly brief.
"My hair is red," was all that it announced.
With a sniff of amusement Stanton collapsed again into his pillows. For almost an hour then he lay considering solemnly whether a red-headed girl could possibly be pretty. By two o'clock he had finally visualized quite a striking, Juno-esque type of beauty with a figure about the regal height of Cornelia's, and blue eyes perhaps just a trifle hazier and more mischievous.
But the little folded paper marked, "No. 2 o'clock," announced destructively: "My eyes are brown. And I am very little."
With an absurdly resolute intention to "play the game" every bit as genuinely as Miss Serial-Letter Co. was playing it, Stanton refrained quite heroically from opening the third dose of news until at least two big, resonant city clocks had insisted that the hour was ripe. By that time the grin in his face was almost bright enough of itself to illuminate any ordinary page.
"I am lame," confided the third message somewhat depressingly. Then snugglingly in parenthesis like the tickle of lips against his ear whispered the one phrase: "My picture is in the fourth paper,--if you should happen still to be awake at four o'clock."
Where now was Stanton's boasted sense of honor concerning the ethics of playing the game according to directions? "Wait a whole hour to see what Molly looked like? Well he guessed not!" Fumbling frantically under his pillow and across the medicine stand he began to search for the missing "No. 4 o'clock." Quite out of breath, at last he discovered it lying on the floor a whole arm's length away from the bed. Only with a really acute stab of pain did he finally succeed in reaching it. Then with fingers fairly trembling with effort, he opened forth and disclosed a tiny snap-shot photograph of a grim-jawed, scrawny-necked, much be-spectacled elderly dame with a huge gray pompadour.
[Illustration: An elderly dame]
"Stung!" said Stanton.
Rheumatism or anger, or something, buzzed in his heart like a bee the rest of the night.
Fortunately in the very first mail the next morning a postal-card came from Cornelia--such a pretty postal-card too, with a bright-colored picture of an inordinately "riggy" looking ostrich staring over a neat wire fence at an eager group of unmistakably Northern tourists. Underneath the picture was written in Cornelia's own precious hand the heart-thrilling information:
"We went to see the Ostrich Farm yesterday. It was really very interesting. C."

III
For quite a long time Stanton lay and considered the matter judicially from every possible point of view. "It would have been rather pleasant," he mused "to know who 'we' were." Almost childishly his face cuddled into the pillow. "She might at least have told me the name of the ostrich!" he smiled grimly.
Thus quite utterly denied any nourishing Cornelia-flavored food for his thoughts, his hungry mind reverted very naturally to the tantalizing, evasive, sweetly spicy fragrance of the 'Molly' episode--before the really dreadful photograph of the unhappy spinster-lady had burst upon his blinking vision.
Scowlingly he picked up the picture and stared and stared at it. Certainly it was grim. But even from its grimness emanated the same faint, mysterious odor of cinnamon roses that lurked in the accompanying letter. "There's some dreadful mistake somewhere," he insisted. Then suddenly he began to laugh, and reaching out once more for pen and paper, inscribed his second letter and his first complaint to the Serial-Letter Co.
"To the Serial-Letter Co.," he wrote sternly, with many ferocious tremors of dignity and rheumatism.
"Kindly allow me to call attention to the fact that in my recent order of the 18th inst., the specifications distinctly stated 'love-letters', and not any correspondence whatsoever,--no matter how exhilarating from either a 'Gray-Plush Squirrel' or a 'Banda Sea Pirate' as evidenced by enclosed photograph which I am hereby returning. Please refund money at once or forward me without delay a consistent photograph of a 'special edition de luxe' girl.
"Very truly yours."
The letter was mailed by the janitor long before noon. Even as late as eleven o'clock that night Stanton was still hopefully expecting an answer. Nor was he altogether disappointed. Just before midnight a messenger boy appeared with a fair-sized manilla envelope, quite stiff and important looking.
"Oh, please, Sir," said the enclosed letter, "Oh, please, Sir, we cannot refund your subscription money because--we have spent it. But if you will