"Mother, I wonder how people do, when they are going to write a book?" "Do?" repeated her mother. "Yes. I wonder how they begin." "I suppose they have something to tell; and then they tell it," said simple Mrs. Carpenter. "No, no, but I mean a story." "What story have you got there?" The mother was shelling peas; the daughter, a girl of twelve years old perhaps, was sitting on the floor at her feet, with an octavo volume in her lap. The floor was clean enough to sit upon; clean enough almost to eat off; it was the floor of the kitchen of a country farmhouse. "This is the 'Talisman, '" the girl answered her mother's question. "O mother, when I am old enough, I should like to write stories " "Why?"