so wonderful at the first, finding that handsome woman instead of another man. Then, somehow, everything kept going wrong, kept getting worse and worse. The doctor hadn't liked her, and she had just sat there and drank and not talked. And she had giggled! Giggling, at HER age! What had she been giggling about?

Well, it all HAD been funny, in a way. Oh, Maud Ellen's face when she saw the doctor was a woman! Ha! What a joke on Maud Ellen! Then at the dinner something about squills-oh yes-that funny little word-flowers they were and the doctor's husband grew them for Queen Mary-ha couldn't you just see them? he was no doubt short and potty and ugly and Queen Mary towering in her toque, poking regally with her umbrella among the squills squills-oh, it WAS a silly little word-squills-ha-skaa-wills-sskkaaa-

wwiills-

She was fumbling with the huge whalebone buttons when she heard the giggle coming out all by itself, coming out in little spasms that kept getting bigger and bigger, and then she felt the tears rolling down her cheeks. Then the giggle spasms suddenly stopped and then the enormous sob-lump exploded inside her and the huge sobs tore out of her body, each like fire. and they hurt her so much she flung herself face down on the sofa to stifle them, but they wouldn't stop. Then she felt the hard whalebone buttons cut cruelly into her breasts, and she pushed herself down harder and harder and made the cruel whalebone buttons bite deeper and deeper into her breasts.

About Our Authors

GERALDINE JACKSON teaches elementary school in Southern California. Her interests include music, literature and psychiatric research.

THOMAS M. MERRITT is Dean Emeritus of ONE INSTITUTE. After a lifetime in the academic world: in the classroom as an administrator and author of many scholarly books Dr. Merritt is now busy with his hilltop garden and a number of hobbies. His facility with seven languages has been of great help to ONE.

K. O. NEAL is an omnivorous reader of "gay novels" and stories. A busy young professional man, he is currently all wrapped up in a newly-acquired home in one of the Los Angeles suburbs.

JULIA NEWMAN's poem in this issue reveals her own frank and outspoken personality and her keen perception. Miss Newman lives in Southern California but is currently visiting in N. Y. C.

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