Who ever feels like telling a precious secret over a steam-heater?
Polly looked away from everybody and gazed straight into the blaze.
"I have been thinking over a plan for my future work," she said, "and I want to tell it to you and see if you all approve and think me equal to it.

It used to come to me in flashes, after this Fairy Godmother of mine opened an avenue for my surplus energy by sending me out as a story-teller; but lately I have n't had any heart for it.

Work grew monotonous and disagreeable and hopeless, and I 'm afraid I had no wish to be useful or helpful to myself or to anybody else.

But now everything is different.

I am not so rich as I was (I wish, Mr.Bird, you would not smile so provokingly when I mention my riches!), and I must not be idle any longer; so this is my plan, I want to be a story-teller by profession.