moving picture plays, a field in which she would speedily gain fame and fortune.  He would throw open the gates of success for her for the nominal fee of thirty dollars, with five dollars extra for “stationery, etc.”  His regular fee was thirty-five dollars, but it was not often that he came across so much ability as she had, and he considered the pleasure he would derive from the correspondence course worth five dollars to him.  Would she not send the first payment of five dollars by return mail so that his enjoyment might begin as soon as possible?

Migwan read the letter through with a beating heart until she came to the price, when her heart sank into her shoes.  To pay thirty dollars was entirely out of the question.  She wrote to several more advertisements and received much the same answer from all of them.  There was only one which she could consider at all.  This one offered no correspondence course, but advertised a book giving all the details of scenario writing, “history of the picture play, form, where to sell your plays, etc., all in one comprehensive volume.”  The price of the book was three dollars.  Migwan hesitated a long time over this last one, but the subtle language of the advertisement drew her back again and again like a magnet, and finally overcame her doubts.  “It will pay for itself many times when I have learned to write plays,” she reflected.  So she took three precious dollars from the housekeeping money and sent for the book.  She did not ask Nyoda’s advice this time; somehow she shrank from telling her about it.

In three days the book arrived.  The “comprehensive volume” was a paper-covered pamphlet containing exactly twenty-nine pages.  It could not have sold for more than ten or fifteen cents in a book store.  The first five pages were devoted to a description of the phenomenal sale of the first edition of the book, two more enlarged upon the “unfillable demand” of the motion picture companies for scenarios, while the remainder of the book was given over to the “technique” of scenario writing.  Migwan read it through eagerly, and did gain an idea of the form in which a play should be cast, although the information was meagre enough.  Three dollars was an outrageous price to pay for the book, thought Migwan, but she comforted herself with the thought that by means of it she would soon lift the family out of their difficulties.  She set to work with a cheery heart.  Writing picture plays was easier than writing stories on account of the skeleton form in which they were cast, which made it unnecessary to strive for excellence of literary style.  She finished the first one in two nights and sent it off with high hopes.  The company she sent it to was listed in the book as “greatly in need of one-reel scenarios, and taking about everything sent to them.”  She was filled with a secret elation and went about the house singing like a lark, until Betty, who had been moping like an owl since her mother went to the hospital, was quite cheered up.  “What are you so happy about?” she asked curiously.  “You act as if somebody had left you a fortune.”