M A R Y G R E S L E Y
AND
AN EDITOR’S TALES.

BY ANTHONY TROLLOPE,
AUTHOR OF
“DOCTOR THORNE,”
“PHINEAS FINN,”
“LOTTA SCHMIDT,”
“ORLEY FARM,”
ETC.
NEW EDITION.
LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
1873.

[The right of translation is reserved.]

CONTENTS.

MARY GRESLEY.

MARY GRESLEY.

WE have known many prettier girls than Mary Gresley, and many handsomer women—but we never knew girl or woman gifted with a face which in supplication was more suasive, in grief more sad, in mirth more merry. It was a face that compelled sympathy, and it did so with the conviction on the mind of the sympathiser that the girl was altogether unconscious of her own power. In her intercourse with us there was, alas! much more of sorrow than of mirth, and we may truly say that in her sufferings we suffered; but still there came to us from our intercourse with her much of delight mingled with the sorrow; and that delight arose, partly no doubt from her woman’s charms, from the bright eye, the beseeching mouth, the soft little hand, and the feminine grace of her unpretending garments; but chiefly, we think, from the extreme humanity of the girl. She had little, indeed none, of that which the world calls society, but yet she was pre-eminently social. Her troubles were very heavy, but she was making ever an unconscious effort to throw them aside, and to be jocund in spite of their weight. She would even laugh at them, and at herself as bearing them. She was a little fair-haired creature, with broad brow and small nose and dimpled chin, with no brightness of complexion, no luxuriance of hair, no swelling glory of bust and shoulders; but with a pair of eyes which, as they looked at you, would be gemmed always either with a tear or with some spark of laughter, and with a mouth in the corners of which was ever lurking some little spark of humour, unless when some unspoken prayer seemed to be hanging on her lips. Of woman’s vanity she had absolutely none. Of her corporeal self, as having charms to rivet man’s love, she thought no more than does a dog. It was a fault with her that she lacked that quality of womanhood. To be loved was to her all the world; unconscious desire for the admiration of men was as strong in her as in other women; and her instinct taught her, as such instincts do teach all women, that such love and admiration was to be the fruit of what feminine gifts she possessed; but the gifts on which she depended,—depending on them without thinking on the matter,—were her softness, her trust, her woman’s weakness, and that power of supplicating by her eye without putting her petition into words which was absolutely irresistible. Where is the man of fifty, who in the course of his life has not learned to love some woman simply because it has come in his way to help her, and to be good to her in her struggles? And if added to that source of affection there be brightness, some spark of humour, social gifts, and a strong flavour of that which we have ventured to call humanity, such love may become almost a passion without the addition of much real beauty.

But in thus talking of love we must guard ourselves somewhat from miscomprehension. In love with Mary Gresley, after the common sense of the word, we never were, nor would it have become us to be so. Had such a state of being unfortunately befallen us, we certainly should be silent on the subject. We were married and old; she was very young, and engaged to be married, always talking to us of her engagement as a thing fixed as the stars. She looked upon us, no doubt,—after she had ceased to regard us simply in our editorial capacity,—as a subsidiary old uncle whom Providence had supplied to her, in order that, if it were possible, the troubles of her life might be somewhat eased by assistance to her from that special quarter. We regarded her first almost as a child, and then as a young woman to whom we owed that sort of protecting care which a graybeard should ever be ready to give to the weakness of feminine adolescence. Nevertheless we were in love with her, and we think such a state of love to be a wholesome and natural condition. We might, indeed, have loved her grandmother,—but the love would have been very different. Had circumstances brought us into connection with her grandmother, we hope we should have done our duty, and had that old lady been our friend we should, we trust, have done it with alacrity. But in our intercourse with Mary Gresley there was more than that. She charmed us. We learned to love the hue of that dark gray stuff frock which she seemed always to wear. When she would sit in the low arm-chair opposite to us, looking up into our eyes as we spoke to her words which must often have stabbed her little heart, we were wont to caress her with that inward undemonstrative embrace that one spirit is able to confer upon another. We thought of her constantly, perplexing our mind for her succour. We forgave all her faults. We exaggerated her virtues. We exerted ourselves for her with a zeal that was perhaps fatuous. Though we attempted sometimes to look black at her, telling her that our time was too precious to be wasted in conversation with her, she soon learned to know how welcome she was to us. Her glove,—which, by-the-bye, was never tattered, though she was very poor,—was an object of regard to us. Her grandmother’s gloves would have been as unacceptable to us as any other morsel of old kid or cotton. Our heart bled for her. Now the heart may suffer much for the sorrows of a male friend, but it may hardly for such be said to bleed. We loved her, in short, as we should not have loved her, but that she was young and gentle, and could smile,—and, above all, but that she looked at us with those bright, beseeching, tear-laden eyes.

Sterne, in his latter days, when very near his end, wrote passionate love-letters to various women, and has been called hard names by Thackeray,—not for writing them, but because he thus showed himself to be incapable of that sincerity which should have bound him to one love. We do not ourselves much admire the sentimentalism of Sterne, finding the expression of it to be mawkish, and thinking that too often he misses the pathos for which he strives from a want of appreciation on his own part of that which is really vigorous in language and touching in sentiment. But we think that Thackeray has been somewhat wrong in throwing that blame on Sterne’s heart which should have been attributed to his taste. The love which he declared when he was old and sick and dying,—a worn-out wreck of a man,—disgusts us, not because it was felt, or not felt, but because it was told;—and told as though the teller meant to offer more than that warmth of sympathy which woman’s strength and woman’s weakness combined will ever produce in the hearts of certain men. This is a sympathy with which neither age, nor crutches, nor matrimony, nor position of any sort need consider itself to be incompatible. It is unreasoning, and perhaps irrational. It gives to outward form and grace that which only inward merit can deserve. It is very dangerous because, unless watched, it leads to words which express that which is not intended. But, though it may be controlled, it cannot be killed. He, who is of his nature open to such impression, will feel it while breath remains to him. It was that which destroyed the character and happiness of Swift, and which made Sterne contemptible. We do not doubt that such unreasoning sympathy, exacted by feminine attraction, was always strong in Johnson’s heart;—but Johnson was strong all over, and could guard himself equally from misconduct and from ridicule. Such sympathy with women, such incapability of withstanding the feminine magnet, was very strong with Goethe,—who could guard himself from ridicule, but not from misconduct. To us the child of whom we are speaking—for she was so then—was ever a child. But she bore in her hand the power of that magnet, and we admit that the needle within our bosom was swayed by it. Her story,—such as we have to tell it,—was as follows.

Mary Gresley, at the time when we first knew her, was eighteen years old, and was the daughter of a medical practitioner, who had lived and died in a small town in one of the northern counties. For facility in telling our story we will call that town Cornboro. Dr. Gresley, as he seemed to have been called, though without proper claim to the title, had been a diligent man, and fairly successful,—except in this, that he died before he had been able to provide for those whom he left behind him. The widow still had her own modest fortune, amounting to some eighty pounds a year; and that, with the furniture of her house, was her whole wealth, when she found herself thus left with the weight of the world upon her shoulders. There was one other daughter older than Mary, whom we never saw, but who was always mentioned as poor Fanny. There had been no sons, and the family consisted of the mother and the two girls. Mary had been only fifteen when her father died, and up to that time had been regarded quite as a child by all who had known her. Mrs. Gresley, in the hour of her need, did as widows do in such cases. She sought advice from her clergyman and neighbours, and was counselled to take a lodger into her house. No lodger could be found so fitting as the curate, and when Mary was seventeen years old she and the curate were engaged to be married. The curate paid thirty pounds a year for his lodgings, and on this, with their own little income, the widow and her two daughters had managed to live. The engagement was known to them all as soon as it had been known to Mary. The love-making, indeed, had gone on beneath the eyes of the mother. There had been not only no deceit, no privacy, no separate interests, but, as far as we ever knew, no question as to prudence in the making of the engagement. The two young people had been brought together, had loved each other, as was so natural, and had become engaged as a matter of course. It was an event as easy to be foretold, or at least as easy to be believed, as the pairing of two birds. From what we heard of this curate, the Rev. Arthur Donne,—for we never saw him,—we fancy that he was a simple, pious, commonplace young man, imbued with a strong idea that in being made a priest he had been invested with a nobility and with some special capacity beyond that of other men, slight in body, weak in health, but honest, true, and warm-hearted. Then, the engagement having been completed, there arose the question of matrimony. The salary of the curate was a hundred a year. The whole income of the vicar, an old man, was, after payment made to his curate, two hundred a year. Could the curate, in such circumstances, afford to take to himself a penniless wife of seventeen? Mrs. Gresley was willing that the marriage should take place, and that they should all do as best they might on their joint income. The vicar’s wife, who seems to have been a strong-minded, sage, though somewhat hard woman, took Mary aside, and told her that such a thing must not be. There would come, she said, children, and destitution, and ruin. She knew perhaps more than Mary knew when Mary told us her story, sitting opposite to us in the low arm-chair. It was the advice of the vicar’s wife that the engagement should be broken off; but that, if the breaking-off of the engagement were impossible, there should be an indefinite period of waiting. Such engagements cannot be broken off. Young hearts will not consent to be thus torn asunder. The vicar’s wife was too strong for them to get themselves married in her teeth, and the period of indefinite waiting was commenced.

And now for a moment we will go further back among Mary’s youthful days. Child as she seemed to be, she had in very early years taken a pen in her hand. The reader need hardly be told that had not such been the case there would not have arisen any cause for friendship between her and us. We are telling an Editor’s tale, and it was in our editorial capacity that Mary first came to us. Well;—in her earliest attempts, in her very young days, she wrote—Heaven knows what; poetry first, no doubt; then, God help her, a tragedy; after that, when the curate-influence first commenced, tales for the conversion of the ungodly;—and at last, before her engagement was a fact, having tried her wing at fiction, in the form of those false little dialogues between Tom the Saint and Bob the Sinner, she had completed a novel in one volume. She was then seventeen, was engaged to be married, and had completed her novel! Passing her in the street you would almost have taken her for a child to whom you might give an orange.

Hitherto her work had come from ambition,—or from a feeling of restless piety inspired by the curate. Now there arose in her young mind the question whether such talent as she possessed might not be turned to account for ways and means, and used to shorten, perhaps absolutely to annihilate, that uncertain period of waiting. The first novel was seen by “a man of letters” in her neighbourhood, who pronounced it to be very clever;—not indeed fit as yet for publication, faulty in grammar, faulty even in spelling,—how I loved the tear that shone in her eye as she confessed this delinquency!—faulty of course in construction, and faulty in character;—but still clever. The man of letters had told her that she must begin again.

Unfortunate man of letters in having thrust upon him so terrible a task! In such circumstances what is the candid, honest, soft-hearted man of letters to do? “Go, girl, and mend your stockings. Learn to make a pie. If you work hard, it may be that some day your intellect will suffice to you to read a book and understand it. For the writing of a book that shall either interest or instruct a brother human being many gifts are required. Have you just reason to believe that they have been given to you?” That is what the candid, honest man of letters says who is not soft-hearted;—and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it will probably be the truth. The soft-hearted man of letters remembers that this special case submitted to him may be the hundredth; and, unless the blotted manuscript is conclusive against such possibility, he reconciles it to his conscience to tune his counsel to that hope. Who can say that he is wrong? Unless such evidence be conclusive, who can venture to declare that this aspirant may not be the one who shall succeed? Who in such emergency does not remember the day in which he also was one of the hundred of whom the ninety-and-nine must fail;—and will not remember also the many convictions on his own mind that he certainly would not be the one appointed? The man of letters in the neighbourhood of Cornboro to whom poor Mary’s manuscript was shown was not sufficiently hard-hearted to make any strong attempt to deter her. He made no reference to the easy stockings, or the wholesome pie,—pointed out the manifest faults which he saw, and added, we do not doubt with much more energy than he threw into his words of censure,—his comfortable assurance that there was great promise in the work. Mary Gresley that evening burned the manuscript, and began another, with the dictionary close at her elbow.

Then, during her work, there occurred two circumstances which brought upon her,—and, indeed, upon the household to which she belonged,—intense sorrow and greatly-increased trouble. The first of these applied more especially to herself. The Rev. Arthur Donne did not approve of novels,—of other novels than those dialogues between Tom and Bob, of the falsehood of which he was unconscious,—and expressed a desire that the writing of them should be abandoned. How far the lover went in his attempt to enforce obedience we, of course, could not know; but he pronounced the edict, and the edict, though not obeyed, created tribulation. Then there came forth another edict which had to be obeyed,—an edict from the probable successor of the late Dr. Gresley,—ordering the poor curate to seek employment in some clime more congenial to his state of health than that in which he was then living. He was told that his throat and lungs and general apparatus for living and preaching were not strong enough for those hyperborean regions, and that he must seek a southern climate. He did do so, and, before I became acquainted with Mary, had transferred his services to a small town in Dorsetshire. The engagement, of course, was to be as valid as ever, though matrimony must be postponed, more indefinitely even than heretofore. But if Mary could write novels and sell them, then how glorious would it be to follow her lover into Dorsetshire! The Rev. Arthur Donne went, and the curate who came in his place was a married man, wanting a house, and not lodgings. So Mary Gresley persevered with her second novel, and completed it before she was eighteen.

The literary friend in the neighbourhood,—to the chance of whose acquaintance I was indebted for my subsequent friendship with Mary Gresley,—found this work to be a great improvement on the first. He was an elderly man, who had been engaged nearly all his life in the conduct of a scientific and agricultural periodical, and was the last man whom I should have taken as a sound critic on works of fiction;—but with spelling, grammatical construction, and the composition of sentences he was acquainted; and he assured Mary that her progress had been great. Should she burn that second story? she asked him. She would if he so recommended, and begin another the next day. Such was not his advice.

“I have a friend in London,” said he, “who has to do with such things, and you shall go to him. I will give you a letter.” He gave her the fatal letter, and she came to us.

She came up to town with her novel; but not only with her novel, for she brought her mother with her. So great was her eloquence, so excellent her suasive power either with her tongue or by that look of supplication in her face, that she induced her mother to abandon her home in Cornboro, and trust herself to London lodgings. The house was let furnished to the new curate, and when I first heard of the Gresleys they were living on the second floor in a small street near to the Euston Square station. Poor Fanny, as she was called, was left in some humble home at Cornboro, and Mary travelled up to try her fortune in the great city. When we came to know her well we expressed our doubts as to the wisdom of such a step. Yes; the vicar’s wife had been strong against the move. Mary confessed as much. That lady had spoken most forcible words, had uttered terrible predictions, had told sundry truths. But Mary had prevailed, and the journey was made, and the lodgings were taken.

We can now come to the day on which we first saw her. She did not write, but came direct to us with her manuscript in her hand. “A young woman, Sir, wants to see you,” said the clerk, in that tone to which we were so well accustomed, and which indicated the dislike which he had learned from us to the reception of unknown visitors.

“Young woman! What young woman?”

“Well, Sir; she is a very young woman;—quite a girl like.”

“I suppose she has got a name. Who sent her? I cannot see any young woman without knowing why. What does she want?”

“Got a manuscript in her hand, Sir.”

“I’ve no doubt she has, and a ton of manuscripts in drawers and cupboards. Tell her to write. I won’t see any woman, young or old, without knowing who she is.”

The man retired, and soon returned with an envelope belonging to the office, on which was written, “Miss Mary Gresley, late of Cornboro.” He also brought me a note from “the man of letters” down in Yorkshire. “Of what sort is she?” I asked, looking at the introduction.

“She aint amiss as to looks,” said the clerk; “and she’s modest-like.” Now certainly it is the fact that all female literary aspirants are not “modest-like.” We read our friend’s letter through, while poor Mary was standing at the counter below. How eagerly should we have run to greet her, to save her from the gaze of the public, to welcome her at least with a chair and the warmth of our editorial fire, had we guessed then what were her qualities! It was not long before she knew the way up to our sanctum without any clerk to show her, and not long before we knew well the sound of that low but not timid knock at our door made always with the handle of the parasol, with which her advent was heralded. We will confess that there was always music to our ears in that light tap from the little round wooden knob. The man of letters in Yorkshire, whom we had known well for many years, had been never known to us with intimacy. We had bought with him and sold with him, had talked with him, and perhaps, walked with him; but he was not one with whom we had eaten, or drunk, or prayed. A dull, well-instructed, honest man he was, fond of his money, and, as we had thought, as unlikely as any man to be waked to enthusiasm by the ambitious dreams of a young girl. But Mary had been potent even over him, and he had written to me, saying that Miss Gresley was a young lady of exceeding promise, in respect of whom he had a strong presentiment that she would rise, if not to eminence, at least to a good position as a writer. “But she is very young,” he added. Having read this letter, we at last desired our clerk to send the lady up.

We remember her step as she came to the door, timid enough then,—hesitating, but yet with an assumed lightness as though she was determined to show us that she was not ashamed of what she was doing. She had on her head a light straw hat, such as then was very unusual in London,—and is not now, we believe, commonly worn in the streets of the metropolis by ladies who believe themselves to know what they are about. But it was a hat, worn upon her head, and not a straw plate done up with ribbons, and reaching down the incline of the forehead as far as the top of the nose. And she was dressed in a gray stuff frock, with a little black band round her waist. As far as our memory goes, we never saw her in any other dress, or with other hat or bonnet on her head. “And what can we do for you,—Miss Gresley?” we said, standing up and holding the literary gentleman’s letter in our hand. We had almost said, “my dear,” seeing her youth and remembering our own age. We were afterwards glad that we had not so addressed her; though it came before long that we did call her “my dear,”—in quite another spirit.

She recoiled a little from the tone of our voice, but recovered herself at once. “Mr. —— thinks that you can do something for me. I have written a novel, and I have brought it to you.”

“You are very young, are you not, to have written a novel?”

“I am young,” she said, “but perhaps older than you think. I am eighteen.” Then for the first time there came into her eye that gleam of a merry humour which never was allowed to dwell there long, but which was so alluring when it showed itself.

“That is a ripe age,” we said laughing, and then we bade her seat herself. At once we began to pour forth that long and dull and ugly lesson which is so common to our life, in which we tried to explain to our unwilling pupil that of all respectable professions for young women literature is the most uncertain, the most heart-breaking, and the most dangerous. “You hear of the few who are remunerated,” we said; “but you hear nothing of the thousands that fail.”

“It is so noble!” she replied.

“But so hopeless.”

“There are those who succeed.”

“Yes, indeed. Even in a lottery one must gain the prize; but they who trust to lotteries break their hearts.”

“But literature is not a lottery. If I am fit, I shall succeed. Mr. —— thinks I may succeed.” Many more words of wisdom we spoke to her, and well do we remember her reply when we had run all our line off the reel, and had completed our sermon. “I shall go on all the same,” she said. “I shall try, and try again,—and again.”

Her power over us, to a certain extent, was soon established. Of course we promised to read the MS., and turned it over, no doubt with an anxious countenance, to see of what kind was the writing. There is a feminine scrawl of a nature so terrible that the task of reading it becomes worse than the treadmill. “I know I can write well,—though I am not quite sure about the spelling,” said Mary, as she observed the glance of our eyes. She spoke truly. The writing was good, though the erasures and alterations were very numerous. And then the story was intended to fill only one volume. “I will copy it for you if you wish it,” said Mary. “Though there are so many scratchings out, it has been copied once.” We would not for worlds have given her such labour, and then we promised to read the tale. We forget how it was brought about, but she told us at that interview that her mother had obtained leave from the pastrycook round the corner to sit there waiting till Mary should rejoin her. “I thought it would be trouble enough for you to have one of us here,” she said with her little laugh when I asked her why she had not brought her mother on with her. I own that I felt that she had been wise; and when I told her that if she would call on me again that day week I would then have read at any rate so much of her work as would enable me to give her my opinion, I did not invite her to bring her mother with her. I knew that I could talk more freely to the girl without the mother’s presence. Even when you are past fifty, and intend only to preach a sermon, you do not wish to have a mother present.

When she was gone we took up the roll of paper and examined it. We looked at the division into chapters, at the various mottoes the poor child had chosen, pronounced to ourselves the name of the story,—it was simply the name of the heroine, an easy-going, unaffected, well-chosen name,—and read the last page of it. On such occasions the reader of the work begins his task almost with a conviction that the labour which he is about to undertake will be utterly thrown away. He feels all but sure that the matter will be bad, that it will be better for all parties, writer, intended readers, and intended publisher, that the written words should not be conveyed into type,—that it will be his duty after some fashion to convey that unwelcome opinion to the writer, and that the writer will go away incredulous, and accusing mentally the Mentor of the moment of all manner of literary sins, among which ignorance, jealousy, and falsehood, will, in the poor author’s imagination, be most prominent. And yet when the writer was asking for that opinion, declaring his especial desire that the opinion should be candid, protesting that his present wish is to have some gauge of his own capability, and that he has come to you believing you to be above others able to give him that gauge,—while his petition to you was being made, he was in every respect sincere. He had come desirous to measure himself, and had believed that you could measure him. When coming he did not think that you would declare him to be an Apollo. He had told himself, no doubt, how probable it was that you would point out to him that he was a dwarf. You find him to be an ordinary man, measuring perhaps five feet seven, and unable to reach the standard of the particular regiment in which he is ambitious of serving. You tell him so in what civillest words you know, and you are at once convicted in his mind of jealousy, ignorance, and falsehood! And yet he is perhaps a most excellent fellow, and capable of performing the best of service,—only in some other regiment! As we looked at Miss Gresley’s manuscript, tumbling it through our hands, we expected even from her some such result. She had gained two things from us already by her outward and inward gifts, such as they were,—first that we would read her story, and secondly that we would read it quickly; but she had not as yet gained from us any belief that by reading it we could serve it.

We did read it,—the most of it before we left our editorial chair on that afternoon, so that we lost altogether the daily walk so essential to our editorial health, and were put to the expense of a cab on our return home. And we incurred some minimum of domestic discomfort from the fact that we did not reach our own door till twenty minutes after our appointed dinner hour. “I have this moment come from the office as hard as a cab could bring me,” we said in answer to the mildest of reproaches, explaining nothing as to the nature of the cause which had kept us so long at our work.

We must not allow our readers to suppose that the intensity of our application had arisen from the overwhelming interest of the story. It was not that the story entranced us, but that our feeling for the writer grew as we read the story. It was simple, unaffected, and almost painfully unsensational. It contained, as I came to perceive afterwards, little more than a recital of what her imagination told her might too probably be the result of her own engagement. It was the story of two young people who became engaged and could not be married. After a course of years the man, with many true arguments, asked to be absolved. The woman yields with an expressed conviction that her lover is right, settles herself down for maiden life, then breaks her heart and dies. The character of the man was utterly untrue to nature. That of the woman was true, but commonplace. Other interest, or other character there was none. The dialogues between the lovers were many and tedious, and hardly a word was spoken between them which two lovers really would have uttered. It was clearly not a work as to which I could tell my little friend that she might depend upon it for fame or fortune. When I had finished it I was obliged to tell myself that I could not advise her even to publish it. But yet I could not say that she had mistaken her own powers or applied herself to a profession beyond her reach. There were a grace and delicacy in her work which were charming. Occasionally she escaped from the trammels of grammar, but only so far that it would be a pleasure to point out to her her errors. There was not a word that a young lady should not have written; and there were throughout the whole evident signs of honest work. We had six days to think it over between our completion of the task and her second visit.

She came exactly at the hour appointed, and seated herself at once in the arm-chair before us as soon as the young man had closed the door behind him. There had been no great occasion for nervousness at her first visit, and she had then, by an evident effort, overcome the diffidence incidental to a meeting with a stranger. But now she did not attempt to conceal her anxiety. “Well,” she said, leaning forward, and looking up into our face, with her two hands folded together.

Even though Truth, standing full panoplied at our elbow, had positively demanded it, we could not have told her then to mend her stockings and bake her pies and desert the calling that she had chosen. She was simply irresistible, and would, we fear, have constrained us into falsehood had the question been between falsehood and absolute reprobation of her work. To have spoken hard, heart-breaking words to her, would have been like striking a child when it comes to kiss you. We fear that we were not absolutely true at first, and that by that absence of truth we made subsequent pain more painful. “Well,” she said, looking up into our face. “Have you read it?” We told her that we had read every word of it. “And it is no good?”

We fear that we began by telling her that it certainly was good,—after a fashion, very good,—considering her youth and necessary inexperience, very good indeed. As we said this she shook her head, and sent out a spark or two from her eyes, intimating her conviction that excuses or quasi praise founded on her youth would avail her nothing. “Would anybody buy it from me?” she asked. No;—we did not think that any publisher would pay her money for it. “Would they print it for me without costing me anything?” Then we told her the truth as nearly as we could. She lacked experience; and if, as she had declared to us before, she was determined to persevere, she must try again, and must learn more of that lesson of the world’s ways which was so necessary to those who attempted to teach that lesson to others. “But I shall try again at once,” she said. We shook our head, endeavouring to shake it kindly. “Currer Bell was only a young girl when she succeeded,” she added. The injury which Currer Bell did after this fashion was almost equal to that perpetrated by Jack Sheppard, and yet Currer Bell was not very young when she wrote.

She remained with us then for above an hour;—for more than two probably, though the time was not specially marked by us; and before her visit was brought to a close she had told us of her engagement with the curate. Indeed, we believe that the greater part of her little history as hitherto narrated was made known to us on that occasion. We asked after her mother early in the interview, and learned that she was not on this occasion kept waiting at the pastrycook’s shop. Mary had come alone, making use of some friendly omnibus, of which she had learned the route. When she told us that she and her mother had come up to London solely with the view of forwarding her views in her intended profession, we ventured to ask whether it would not be wiser for them to return to Cornboro, seeing how improbable it was that she would have matter fit for the press within any short period. Then she explained that they had calculated that they would be able to live in London for twelve months, if they spent nothing except on absolute necessaries. The poor girl seemed to keep back nothing from us. “We have clothes that will carry us through, and we shall be very careful. I came in an omnibus;—but I shall walk if you will let me come again.” Then she asked me for advice. How was she to set about further work with the best chance of turning it to account?

It had been altogether the fault of that retired literary gentleman down in the north, who had obtained what standing he had in the world of letters by writing about guano and the cattle plague! Divested of all responsibility, and fearing no further trouble to himself, he had ventured to tell this girl that her work was full of promise. Promise means probability, and in this case there was nothing beyond a remote chance. That she and her mother should have left their little household gods, and come up to London on such a chance, was a thing terrible to the mind. But we felt before these two hours were over that we could not throw her off now. We had become old friends, and there had been that between us which gave her a positive claim upon our time. She had sat in our arm-chair, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and her hands stretched out, till we, caught by the charm of her unstudied intimacy, had wheeled round our chair, and had placed ourselves, as nearly as the circumstances would admit, in the same position. The magnetism had already begun to act upon us. We soon found ourselves taking it for granted that she was to remain in London and begin another book. It was impossible to resist her. Before the interview was over, we, who had been conversant with all these matters before she was born; we, who had latterly come to regard our own editorial fault as being chiefly that of personal harshness; we, who had repulsed aspirant novelists by the score,—we had consented to be a party to the creation, if not to the actual writing, of this new book!

It was to be done after this fashion. She was to fabricate a plot, and to bring it to us, written on two sides of a sheet of letter paper. On the reverse sides we were to criticise this plot, and prepare emendations. Then she was to make out skeletons of the men and women who were afterwards to be clothed with flesh and made alive with blood, and covered with cuticles. After that she was to arrange her proportions; and at last, before she began to write the story, she was to describe in detail such part of it as was to be told in each chapter. On every advancing wavelet of the work we were to give her our written remarks. All this we promised to do because of the quiver in her lip, and the alternate tear and sparkle in her eye. “Now that I have found a friend, I feel sure that I can do it,” she said, as she held our hand tightly before she left us.

In about a month, during which she had twice written to us and twice been answered, she came with her plot. It was the old story, with some additions and some change. There was matrimony instead of death at the end, and an old aunt was brought in for the purpose of relenting and producing an income. We added a few details, feeling as we did so that we were the very worst of botchers. We doubt now whether the old, sad, simple story was not the better of the two. Then, after another lengthened interview, we sent our pupil back to create her skeletons. When she came with the skeletons we were dear friends and learned to call her Mary. Then it was that she first sat at our editorial table, and wrote a love-letter to the curate. It was then mid-winter, wanting but a few days to Christmas, and Arthur, as she called him, did not like the cold weather. “He does not say so,” she said, “but I fear he is ill. Don’t you think there are some people with whom everything is unfortunate?” She wrote her letter, and had recovered her spirits before she took her leave.

We then proposed to her to bring her mother to dine with us on Christmas Day. We had made a clean breast of it at home in regard to our heart-flutterings, and had been met with a suggestion that some kindness might with propriety be shown to the old lady as well as to the young one. We had felt grateful to the old lady for not coming to our office with her daughter, and had at once assented. When we made the suggestion to Mary there came first a blush over all her face, and then there followed the well-known smile before the blush was gone. “You’ll all be dressed fine,” she said. We protested that not a garment would be changed by any of the family after the decent church-going in the morning. “Just as I am?” she asked. “Just as you are,” we said, looking at the dear gray frock, adding some mocking assertion that no possible combination of millinery could improve her. “And mamma will be just the same? Then we will come,” she said. We told her an absolute falsehood, as to some necessity which would take us in a cab to Euston Square on the afternoon of that Christmas Day, so that we could call and bring them both to our house without trouble or expense. “You sha’n’t do anything of the kind,” she said. However, we swore to our falsehood,—perceiving, as we did so, that she did not believe a word of it; but in the matter of the cab we had our own way.

We found the mother to be what we had expected,—a weak, ladylike, lachrymose old lady, endowed with a profound admiration for her daughter, and so bashful that she could not at all enjoy her plum-pudding. We think that Mary did enjoy hers thoroughly. She made a little speech to the mistress of the house, praising ourselves with warm words and tearful eyes, and immediately won the heart of a new friend. She allied herself warmly to our daughters, put up with the schoolboy pleasantries of our sons, and before the evening was over was dressed up as a ghost for the amusement of some neighbouring children who were brought in to play snapdragon. Mrs. Gresley, as she drank her tea and crumbled her bit of cake, seated on a distant sofa, was not so happy, partly because she remembered her old gown, and partly because our wife was a stranger to her. Mary had forgotten both circumstances before the dinner was half over. She was the sweetest ghost that ever was seen. How pleasant would be our ideas of departed spirits if such ghosts would visit us frequently!

They repeated their visits to us not unfrequently during the twelve months; but as the whole interest attaching to our intercourse had reference to circumstances which took place in that editorial room of ours, it will not be necessary to refer further to the hours, very pleasant to ourselves, which she spent with us in our domestic life. She was ever made welcome when she came, and was known by us as a dear, well-bred, modest, clever little girl. The novel went on. That catalogue of the skeletons gave us more trouble than all the rest, and many were the tears which she shed over it, and sad were the misgivings by which she was afflicted, though never vanquished! How was it to be expected that a girl of eighteen should portray characters such as she had never known? In her intercourse with the curate all the intellect had been on her side. She had loved him because it was requisite to her to love some one; and now, as she had loved him, she was as true as steel to him. But there had been almost nothing for her to learn from him. The plan of the novel went on, and as it did so we became more and more despondent as to its success. And through it all we knew how contrary it was to our own judgment to expect, even to dream of, anything but failure. Though we went on working with her, finding it to be quite impossible to resist her entreaties, we did tell her from day to day that, even presuming she were entitled to hope for ultimate success, she must go through an apprenticeship of ten years before she could reach it. Then she would sit silent, repressing her tears, and searching for arguments with which to support her cause.

“Working hard is apprenticeship,” she said to us once.

“Yes, Mary; but the work will be more useful, and the apprenticeship more wholesome, if you will take them for what they are worth.”

“I shall be dead in ten years,” she said.

“If you thought so you would not intend to marry Mr. Donne. But even were it certain that such would be your fate, how can that alter the state of things? The world would know nothing of that; and if it did, would the world buy your book out of pity?”

“I want no one to pity me,” she said; “but I want you to help me.” So we went on helping her. At the end of four months she had not put pen to paper on the absolute body of her projected novel; and yet she had worked daily at it, arranging its future construction.

During the next month, when we were in the middle of March, a gleam of real success came to her. We had told her frankly that we would publish nothing of hers in the periodical which we were ourselves conducting. She had become too dear to us for us not to feel that were we to do so, we should be doing it rather for her sake than for that of our readers. But we did procure for her the publication of two short stories elsewhere. For these she received twelve guineas, and it seemed to her that she had found an El Dorado of literary wealth. I shall never forget her ecstasy when she knew that her work would be printed, or her renewed triumph when the first humble cheque was given into her hands. There are those who will think that such a triumph, as connected with literature, must be sordid. For ourselves, we are ready to acknowledge that money payment for work done is the best and most honest test of success. We are sure that it is so felt by young barristers and young doctors, and we do not see why rejoicing on such realisation of long-cherished hope should be more vile with the literary aspirant than with them. “What do you think I’ll do first with it?” she said. We thought she meant to send something to her lover, and we told her so. “I’ll buy mamma a bonnet to go to church in. I didn’t tell you before, but she hasn’t been these three Sundays because she hasn’t one fit to be seen.” I changed the cheque for her, and she went off and bought the bonnet.

Though I was successful for her in regard to the two stories, I could not go beyond that. We could have filled pages of periodicals with her writing had we been willing that she should work without remuneration. She herself was anxious for such work, thinking that it would lead to something better. But we opposed it, and, indeed, would not permit it, believing that work so done can be serviceable to none but those who accept it that pages may be filled without cost.

During the whole winter, while she was thus working, she was in a state of alarm about her lover. Her hope was ever that when warm weather came he would again be well and strong. We know nothing sadder than such hope founded on such source. For does not the winter follow the summer, and then again comes the killing spring? At this time she used to read us passages from his letters, in which he seemed to speak of little but his own health.

In her literary ambition he never seemed to have taken part since she had declared her intention of writing profane novels. As regarded him, his sole merit to us seemed to be in his truth to her. He told her that in his opinion they two were as much joined together as though the service of the Church had bound them; but even in saying that he spoke ever of himself and not of her. Well;—May came, dangerous, doubtful, deceitful May, and he was worse. Then, for the first time, the dread word, consumption, passed her lips. It had already passed ours, mentally, a score of times. We asked her what she herself would wish to do. Would she desire to go down to Dorsetshire and see him? She thought awhile, and said that she would wait a little longer.

The novel went on, and at length, in June, she was writing the actual words on which, as she thought, so much depended. She had really brought the story into some shape in the arrangement of her chapters; and sometimes even I began to hope. There were moments in which with her hope was almost certainty. Towards the end of June Mr. Donne declared himself to be better. He was to have a holiday in August, and then he intended to run up to London and see his betrothed. He still gave details, which were distressing to us, of his own symptoms; but it was manifest that he himself was not desponding, and she was governed in her trust or in her despair altogether by him. But when August came the period of his visit was postponed. The heat had made him weak, and he was to come in September.

Early in August we ourselves went away for our annual recreation:—not that we shoot grouse, or that we have any strong opinion that August and September are the best months in the year for holiday-making,—but that everybody does go in August. We ourselves are not specially fond of August. In many places to which one goes a-touring mosquitoes bite in that month. The heat, too, prevents one from walking. The inns are all full, and the railways crowded. April and May are twice pleasanter months in which to see the world and the country. But fashion is everything, and no man or woman will stay in town in August for whom there exists any practicability of leaving it. We went on the 10th,—just as though we had a moor, and one of the last things we did before our departure was to read and revise the last-written chapter of Mary’s story.

About the end of September we returned, and up to that time the lover had not come to London. Immediately on our return we wrote to Mary, and the next morning she was with us. She had seated herself on her usual chair before she spoke, and we had taken her hand asked after herself and her mother. Then, with something of mirth in our tone, we demanded the work which she had done since our departure. “He is dying,” she replied.

She did not weep as she spoke. It was not on such occasions as this that the tears filled her eyes. But there was in her face a look of fixed and settled misery which convinced us that she at least did not doubt the truth of her own assertion. We muttered something as to our hope that she was mistaken. “The doctor, there, has written to tell mamma that it is so. Here is his letter.” The doctor’s letter was a good letter, written with more of assurance than doctors can generally allow themselves to express. “I fear that I am justified in telling you,” said the doctor, “that it can only be a question of weeks.” We got up and took her hand. There was not a word to be uttered.

“I must go to him,” she said, after a pause.

“Well;—yes. It will be better.”

“But we have no money.” It must be explained now that offers of slight, very slight, pecuniary aid had been made by us both to Mary and to her mother on more than one occasion. These had been refused with adamantine firmness, but always with something of mirth, or at least of humour, attached to the refusal. The mother would simply refer to the daughter, and Mary would declare that they could manage to see the twelvemonth through and go back to Cornboro, without becoming absolute beggars. She would allude to their joint wardrobe, and would confess that there would not have been a pair of boots between them but for that twelve guineas; and indeed she seemed to have stretched that modest incoming so as to cover a legion of purchases. And of these things she was never ashamed to speak. We think there must have been at least two gray frocks, because the frock was always clean, and never absolutely shabby. Our girls at home declared that they had seen three. Of her frock, as it happened, she never spoke to us, but the new boots and the new gloves, “and ever so many things that I can’t tell you about, which we really couldn’t have gone without,” all came out of the twelve guineas. That she had taken, not only with delight, but with triumph. But pecuniary assistance from ourselves she had always refused. “It would be a gift,” she would say.

“Have it as you like.”

“But people don’t give other people money.”

“Don’t they? That’s all you know about the world.”

“Yes; to beggars. We hope we needn’t come to that.” It was thus that she always answered us, but always with something of laughter in her eye, as though their poverty was a joke. Now, when the demand upon her was for that which did not concern her personal comfort, which referred to a matter felt by her to be vitally important, she declared, without a minute’s hesitation, that she had not money for the journey.

“Of course you can have money,” we said. “I suppose you will go at once?”

“Oh yes,—at once. That is, in a day or two,—after he shall have received my letter. Why should I wait?” We sat down to write a cheque, and she, seeing what we were doing, asked how much it was to be. “No;—half that will do,” she said. “Mamma will not go. We have talked it over and decided it. Yes; I know all about that. I am going to see my lover,—my dying lover; and I have to beg for the money to take me to him. Of course I am a young girl; but in such a condition am I to stand upon the ceremony of being taken care of? A housemaid wouldn’t want to be taken care of at eighteen.” We did exactly as she bade us, and then attempted to comfort her while the young man went to get money for the cheque. What consolation was possible? It was simply necessary to admit with frankness that sorrow had come from which there could be no present release. “Yes,” she said. “Time will cure it,—in a way. One dies in time, and then of course it is all cured.” “One hears of this kind of thing often,” she said afterwards, still leaning forward in her chair, still with something of the old expression in her eyes,—something almost of humour in spite of her grief; “but it is the girl who dies. When it is the girl, there isn’t, after all, so much harm done. A man goes about the world and can shake it off; and then, there are plenty of girls.” We could not tell her how infinitely more important, to our thinking, was her life than that of him whom she was going to see now for the last time; but there did spring up within our mind a feeling, greatly opposed to that conviction which formerly we had endeavoured to impress upon herself,—that she was destined to make for herself a successful career.

She went, and remained by her lover’s bed-side for three weeks. She wrote constantly to her mother, and once or twice to ourselves. She never again allowed herself to entertain a gleam of hope, and she spoke of her sorrow as a thing accomplished. In her last interview with us she had hardly alluded to her novel, and in her letters she never mentioned it. But she did say one word which made us guess what was coming. “You will find me greatly changed in one thing,” she said; “so much changed that I need never have troubled you.” The day for her return to London was twice postponed, but at last she was brought to leave him. Stern necessity was too strong for her. Let her pinch herself as she might, she must live down in Dorsetshire,—and could not live on his means, which were as narrow as her own. She left him; and on the day after her arrival in London she walked across from Euston Square to our office.

“Yes,” she said, “it is all over. I shall never see him again on this side of heaven’s gates.” We do not know that we ever saw a tear in her eyes produced by her own sorrow. She was possessed of some wonderful strength which seemed to suffice for the bearing of any burden. Then she paused, and we could only sit silent, with our eyes fixed upon the rug. “I have made him a promise,” she said at last. Of course we asked her what was the promise, though at the moment we thought that we knew. “I will make no more attempt at novel writing.”

“Such a promise should not have been asked,—or given,” we said vehemently.

“It should have been asked,—because he thought it right,” she answered. “And of course it was given. Must he not know better than I do? Is he not one of God’s ordained priests? In all the world is there one so bound to obey him as I?” There was nothing to be said for it at such a moment as that. There is no enthusiasm equal to that produced by a death-bed parting. “I grieve greatly,” she said, “that you should have had so much vain labour with a poor girl who can never profit by it.”

“I don’t believe the labour will have been vain,” we answered, having altogether changed those views of ours as to the futility of the pursuit which she had adopted.

“I have destroyed it all,” she said.

“What;—burned the novel?”

“Every scrap of it. I told him that I would do so, and that he should know that I had done it. Every page was burned after I got home last night, and then I wrote to him before I went to bed.”

“Do you mean that you think it wicked that people should write novels?” we asked.

“He thinks it to be a misapplication of God’s gifts, and that has been enough for me. He shall judge for me, but I will not judge for others. And what does it matter? I do not want to write a novel now.”

They remained in London till the end of the year for which the married curate had taken their house, and then they returned to Cornboro. We saw them frequently while they were still in town, and despatched them by the train to the north just when the winter was beginning. At that time the young clergyman was still living down in Dorsetshire, but he was lying in his grave when Christmas came. Mary never saw him again, nor did she attend his funeral. She wrote to us frequently then, as she did for years afterwards. “I should have liked to have stood at his grave,” she said; “but it was a luxury of sorrow that I wished to enjoy, and they who cannot earn luxuries should not have them. They were going to manage it for me here, but I knew I was right to refuse it.” Right, indeed! As far as we knew her, she never moved a single point from what was right.

All these things happened many years ago. Mary Gresley, on her return to Cornboro, apprenticed herself, as it were, to the married curate there, and called herself, I think, a female Scripture reader. I know that she spent her days in working hard for the religious aid of the poor around her. From time to time we endeavoured to instigate her to literary work; and she answered our letters by sending us wonderful little dialogues between Tom the Saint and Bob the Sinner. We are in no humour to criticise them now; but we can assert, that though that mode of religious teaching is most distasteful to us, the literary merit shown even in such works as these was very manifest. And there came to be apparent in them a gleam of humour which would sometimes make us think that she was sitting opposite to us and looking at us, and that she was Tom the Saint, and that we were Bob the Sinner. We said what we could to turn her from her chosen path, throwing into our letters all the eloquence and all the thought of which we were masters: but our eloquence and our thought were equally in vain.

At last, when eight years had passed over her head after the death of Mr. Donne, she married a missionary who was going out to some forlorn country on the confines of African colonisation; and there she died. We saw her on board the ship in which she sailed, and before we parted there had come that tear into her eyes, the old look of supplication on her lips, and the gleam of mirth across her face. We kissed her once,—for the first and only time,—as we bade God bless her!

THE TURKISH BATH.

THE TURKISH BATH.

IT was in the month of August. The world had gone to the moors and the Rhine, but we were still kept in town by the exigencies of our position. We had been worked hard during the preceding year, and were not quite as well as our best friends might have wished us;—and we resolved upon taking a Turkish bath. This little story records the experience of one individual man; but our readers, we hope, will, without a grudge, allow us the use of the editorial we. We doubt whether the story could be told at all in any other form. We resolved upon taking a Turkish bath, and at about three o’clock in the day we strutted from the outer to the inner room of the establishment in that light costume and with that air of Arab dignity which are peculiar to the place.

As everybody has not taken a Turkish bath in Jermyn Street, we will give the shortest possible description of the position. We had entered of course in the usual way, leaving our hat and our boots and our “valuables” among the numerous respectable assistants who throng the approaches; and as we had entered we had observed a stout, middle-aged gentleman on the other side of the street, clad in vestments somewhat the worse for wear, and to our eyes particularly noticeable by reason of the tattered condition of his gloves. A well-to-do man may have no gloves, or may simply carry in his hands those which appertain to him rather as a thing of custom than for any use for which he requires them. But a tattered glove, worn on the hand, is to our eyes the surest sign of a futile attempt at outer respectability. It is melancholy to us beyond expression. Our brother editors, we do not doubt, are acquainted with the tattered glove, and have known the sadness which it produces. If there be an editor whose heart has not been softened by the feminine tattered glove, that editor is not our brother. In this instance the tattered glove was worn by a man; and though the usual indication of poor circumstances was conveyed, there was nevertheless something jaunty in the gentleman’s step which preserved him from the desecration of pity. We barely saw him, but still were thinking of him as we passed into the building with the oriental letters on it, and took off our boots, and pulled out our watch and purse.

We were of course accommodated with two checked towels; and, having in vain attempted to show that we were to the manner born by fastening the larger of them satisfactorily round our own otherwise naked person, had obtained the assistance of one of those very skilful eastern boys who glide about the place and create envy by their familiarity with its mysteries. With an absence of all bashfulness which soon grows upon one, we had divested ourselves of our ordinary trappings beneath the gaze of five or six young men lying on surrounding sofas,—among whom we recognised young Walker of the Treasury, and hereby testify on his behalf that he looks almost as fine a fellow without his clothes as he does with them,—and had strutted through the doorway into the bath-room, trailing our second towel behind us. Having observed the matter closely in the course of perhaps half-a-dozen visits, we are prepared to recommend that mode of entry to our young friends as being at the same time easy and oriental. There are those who wear the second towel as a shawl, thereby no doubt achieving a certain decency of garb; but this is done to the utter loss of all dignity; and a feminine appearance is produced, such as is sometimes that of a lady of fifty looking after her maid-servants at seven o’clock in the morning and intending to dress again before breakfast. And some there are who carry it under the arm,—simply as a towel; but these are they who, from English perversity, wilfully rob the institution of that picturesque orientalism which should be its greatest charm. A few are able to wear the article as a turban, and that no doubt should be done by all who are competent to achieve the position. We have observed that men who can do so enter the bath-room with an air and are received there with a respect which no other arrangement of the towel will produce. We have tried this; but as the turban gets over our eyes, and then falls altogether off our brow, we have abandoned it. In regard to personal deportment, depending partly on the step, somewhat on the eye, but chiefly on the costume, it must be acknowledged that “the attempt and not the deed confounds us.” It is not every man who can carry a blue towel as a turban, and look like an Arab in the streets of Cairo, as he walks slowly down the room in Jermyn Street with his arms crossed on his naked breast. The attempt and not the deed does confound one shockingly. We, therefore, recommend that the second towel should be trailed. The effect is good, and there is no difficulty in the trailing which may not be overcome.

We had trailed our way into the bath-room, and had slowly walked to one of those arm-chairs in which it is our custom on such occasions to seat ourselves and to await sudation. There are marble couches; and if a man be able to lie on stone for half an hour without a movement beyond that of clapping his hands, or a sound beyond a hollow-voiced demand for water, the effect is not bad. But he loses everything if he tosses himself uneasily on his hard couch, and we acknowledge that our own elbows are always in the way of our own comfort, and that our bones become sore. We think that the marble sofas must be intended for the younger Turks. If a man can stretch himself on stone without suffering for the best part of an hour,—or, more bravely perhaps, without appearing to suffer, let him remember that all is not done even then. Very much will depend on the manner in which he claps his hands, and the hollowness of the voice in which he calls for water. There should, we think, be two blows of the palms. One is very weak and proclaims its own futility. Even to dull London ears it seems at once to want the eastern tone. We have heard three given effectively, but we think that it requires much practice; and even when it is perfect, the result is that of western impatience rather than of eastern gravity. No word should be pronounced, beyond that one word,—Water. The effect should be as though the whole mind were so devoted to the sudorific process as to admit of no extraneous idea. There should seem to be almost an agony in the effort,—as though the man enduring it, conscious that with success he would come forth a god, was aware that being as yet but mortal he may perish in the attempt. Two claps of the hand and a call for water, and that repeated with an interval of ten minutes, are all the external signs of life that the young Turkish bather may allow to himself while he is stretched upon his marble couch.

We had taken a chair,—well aware that nothing god-like could be thus achieved, and contented to obtain the larger amount of human comfort. The chairs are placed two and two, and a custom has grown up,—of which we scarcely think that the origin has been eastern,—in accordance with which friends occupying these chairs will spend their time in conversation. The true devotee to the Turkish bath will, we think, never speak at all; but when the speaking is low in tone, just something between a whisper and an articulate sound, the slight murmuring hum produced is not disagreeable. We cannot quite make up our mind whether this use of the human voice be or be not oriental; but we think that it adds to the mystery, and upon the whole it gratifies. Let it be understood, however, that harsh, resonant, clearly-expressed speech is damnable. The man who talks aloud to his friend about the trivial affairs of life is selfish, ignorant, unpoetical,—and English in the very worst sense of the word. Who but an ass proud of his own capacity for braying would venture to dispel the illusions of a score of bathers by observing aloud that the House sat till three o’clock that morning?

But though friends may talk in low voices, a man without a friend will hardly fall into conversation at the Turkish bath. It is said that our countrymen are unapt to speak to each other without introduction, and this inaptitude is certainly not decreased by the fact that two men meet each other with nothing on but a towel a piece. Finding yourself next to a man in such a garb you hardly know where to begin. And then there lies upon you the weight of that necessity of maintaining a certain dignity of deportment which has undoubtedly grown upon you since you succeeded in freeing yourself from your socks and trousers. For ourselves we have to admit that the difficulty is much increased by the fact that we are short-sighted, and are obligated, by the sudorific processes and by the shampooing and washing that are to come, to leave our spectacles behind us. The delicious wonder of the place is no doubt increased to us, but our incapability of discerning aught of those around us in that low gloomy light is complete. Jones from Friday Street, or even Walker from the Treasury, is the same to us as one of those Asiatic slaves who administer to our comfort, and flit about the place with admirable decorum and self-respect. On this occasion we had barely seated ourselves, when another bather, with slow, majestic step, came to the other chair; and, with a manner admirably adapted to the place, stretching out his naked legs, and throwing back his naked shoulders, seated himself beside us. We are much given to speculations on the characters and probable circumstances of those with whom we are brought in contact. Our editorial duties require that it should be so. How should we cater for the public did we not observe the public in all its moods? We thought that we could see at once that this was no ordinary man, and we may as well aver here, at the beginning of our story, that subsequent circumstances proved our first conceptions to be correct. The absolute features of the gentleman we did not, indeed, see plainly. The gloom of the place and our own deficiency of sight forbade it. But we could discern the thorough man of the world, the traveller who had seen many climes, the cosmopolitan to whom East and West were alike, in every motion that he made. We confess that we were anxious for conversation, and that we struggled within ourselves for an apt subject, thinking how we might begin. But the apt subject did not occur to us, and we should have passed that half-hour of repose in silence had not our companion been more ready than ourselves. “Sir,” said he, turning round in his seat with a peculiar and captivating grace, “I shall not, I hope, offend or transgress any rule of politeness by speaking to a stranger.” There was ease and dignity in his manner, and at the same time some slight touch of humour which was very charming. I thought that I detected just a hint of an Irish accent in his tone; but if so the dear brogue of his country, which is always delightful to me, had been so nearly banished by intercourse with other tongues as to leave the matter still a suspicion,—a suspicion, or rather a hope.

“By no means,” we answered, turning round on our left shoulder, but missing the grace with which he had made his movement.

“There is nothing,” said he, “to my mind so absurd as that two men should be seated together for an hour without venturing to open their mouths because they do not know each other. And what matter does it make whether a man has his breeches on or is without them?”

My hope had now become an assurance. As he named the article of clothing which peculiarly denotes a man he gave a picturesque emphasis to the word which was certainly Hibernian. Who does not know the dear sound? And, as a chance companion for a few idle minutes, is there any one so likely to prove himself agreeable as a well-informed, travelled Irishman?

“And yet,” said we, “men do depend much on their outward paraphernalia.”

“Indeed and they do,” said our friend. “And why? Because they can trust their tailors when they can’t trust themselves. Give me the man who can make a speech without any of the accessories of the pulpit, who can preach what sermon there is in him without a pulpit.” His words were energetic, but his voice was just suited to the place. Had he spoken aloud, so that others might have heard him, we should have left our chair, and have retreated to one of the inner and hotter rooms at the moment. His words were perfectly audible, but he spoke in a fitting whisper. “It is a part of my creed,” he continued, “that we should never lose even a quarter of an hour. What a strange mass of human beings one finds in this city of London!”

“A mighty maze, but not without a plan,” we replied.

“Bedad,—and it’s hard enough to find the plan,” said he. It struck me that after that he rose into a somewhat higher flight of speech, as though he had remembered and was desirous of dropping his country. It is the customary and perhaps the only fault of an Irishman. “Whether it be there or not, we can expatiate free, as the poet says. How unintelligible is London! New York or Constantinople one can understand,—or even Paris. One knows what the world is doing in these cities, and what men desire.”

“What men desire is nearly the same in all cities,” we remarked,—and not without truth as we think.

“Is it money you mane?” he said, again relapsing. “Yes; money, no doubt, is the grand desideratum,—the ‘to prepon,’ the ‘to kalon’ the ‘to pan!’” Plato and Pope were evidently at his fingers’ ends. We did not conclude from this slight evidence that he was thoroughly imbued with the works either of the poet or the philosopher; but we hold that for the ordinary purposes of conversation a superficial knowledge of many things goes further than an intimacy with one or two. “Money,” continued he, “is everything, no doubt;—rem—rem; rem, si possis recte, si non,——; you know the rest. I don’t complain of that. I like money myself. I know its value. I’ve had it, and,—I’m not ashamed to say it, Sir,—I’ve been without it.”

“Our sympathies are completely with you in reference to the latter position,” we said,—remembering, with a humility that we hope is natural to us, that we were not always editors.

“What I complain of is,” said our new friend still whispering, as he passed his hand over his arms and legs, to learn whether the temperature of the room was producing its proper effect, “that if a man here in London have a diamond, or a pair of boots, or any special skill at his command, he cannot take his article to the proper mart, and obtain for it the proper price.”

“Can he do that in Constantinople?” we enquired.

“Much better and more accurately than he can in London. And so he can in Paris!” We did not believe this; but as we were thinking after what fashion we would express our doubts, he branched off so quickly to a matter of supply and demand with which we were specially interested, that we lost the opportunity of arguing the general question. “A man of letters,” he said, “a capable and an instructed man of letters, can always get a market for his wares in Paris.”

“A capable and instructed man of letters will do so in London,” we said, “as soon as he has proved his claims. He must prove them in Paris before they can be allowed.”

“Yes;—he must prove them. By-the-bye, will you have a cheroot?” So saying, he stretched out his hand, and took from the marble slab beside him two cheroots which he had placed there. He then proceeded to explain that he did not bring in his case because of the heat, but that he was always “muni,”—that was his phrase,—with a couple, in the hope that he might meet an acquaintance with whom to share them. I accepted his offer, and when we had walked round the chamber to a light provided for the purpose, we reseated ourselves. His manner of moving about the place was so good that I felt it to be a pity that he should ever have a rag on more than he wore at present. His tobacco, I must own, did not appear to me to be of the first class; but then I am not in the habit of smoking cheroots, and am no judge of the merits of the weed as grown in the East. “Yes;—a man in Paris must prove his capability; but then how easily he can do it, if the fact to be proved be there! And how certain is the mart, if he have the thing to sell!”

We immediately denied that in this respect there was any difference between the two capitals, pointing out what we believe to be a fact,—that in one capital as in the other, there exists, and must ever exist, extreme difficulty in proving the possession of an art so difficult to define as capability of writing for the press. “Nothing but success can prove it,” we said, as we slapped our thigh with an energy altogether unbecoming our position as a Turkish bather.

“A man may have a talent then, and he cannot use it till he have used it! He may possess a diamond, and cannot sell it till he have sold it! What is a man to do who wishes to engage himself in any of the multifarious duties of the English press? How is he to begin? In New York I can tell such a one where to go at once. Let him show in conversation that he is an educated man, and they will give him a trial on the staff of any news paper;—they will let him run his venture for the pages of any magazine. He may write his fingers off here, and not an editor of them all will read a word that he writes.”

Here he touched us, and we were indignant. When he spoke of the magazines we knew that he was wrong. “With newspapers,” we said, “we imagine it to be impossible that contributions from the outside world should be looked at; but papers sent to the magazines,—at any rate to some of them,—are read.”

“I believe,” said he, “that a little farce is kept up. They keep a boy to look at a line or two and then return the manuscript. The pages are filled by the old stock-writers, who are sure of the market let them send what they will,—padding-mongers who work eight hours a day, and hardly know what they write about.” We again loudly expressed our opinion that he was wrong, and that there did exist magazines, the managers of which were sedulously anxious to obtain the assistance of what he called literary capacity, wherever they could find it. Sitting there at the Turkish bath with nothing but a towel round us, we could not declare ourselves to a perfect stranger, and we think that as a rule editors should be impalpable;—but we did express our opinion very strongly.

“And you believe,” said he, with something of scorn in his voice, “that if a man who had been writing English for the press in other countries,—in New York say, or in Doblin,—a man of undoubted capacity, mind you, were to make the attempt here, in London, he would get a hearing.”

“Certainly he would,” said we.

“And would any editor see him unless he came with an introduction from some special friend?”

We paused a moment before we answered this, because the question was to us one having a very special meaning. Let an editor do his duty with ever so pure a conscience, let him spend all his days and half his nights reading manuscripts and holding the balance fairly between the public and those who wish to feed the public, let his industry be never so unwearied and his impartiality never so unflinching, still he will, if possible, avoid the pain of personally repelling those to whom he is obliged to give an unfavourable answer. But we at the Turkish bath were quite unknown to the outer world, and might hazard an opinion, as any stranger might have done. And we have seen very many such visitors as those to whom our friend alluded; and may, perhaps, see many more.

“Yes,” said we. “An editor might or might not see such a gentleman: but, if pressed, no doubt he would. An English editor would be quite as likely to do so as a French editor.” This we declared with energy, having felt ourselves to be ruffled by the assertion that these things are managed better in Paris or in New York than in London.

“Then, Mr. ——, would you give me an interview, if I call with a little manuscript which I have to-morrow morning?” said my Irish friend, addressing us with a beseeching tone, and calling us by the very name by which we are known among our neighbours and tradesmen. We felt that everything was changed between us, and that the man had plunged a dagger into us.

Yes; he had plunged a dagger into us. Had we had our clothes on, had we felt ourselves to possess at the moment our usual form of life, we think that we could have rebuked him. As it was we could only rise from our chair, throw away the fag end of the filthy cheroot which he had given us, and clap our hands half-a-dozen times for the Asiatic to come and shampoo us. But the Irishman was at our elbow. “You will let me see you to-morrow?” he said. “My name is Molloy,—Michael Molloy. I have not a card about me, because my things are outside there.”

“A card would do no good at all,” we said, again clapping our hands for the shampooer.

“I may call, then?” said Mr. Michael Molloy.

“Certainly;—yes, you can call if you please.” Then, having thus ungraciously acceded to the request made to us, we sat down on the marble bench and submitted ourselves to the black attendant. During the whole of the following operation, while the man was pummelling our breast and poking our ribs, and pinching our toes,—while he was washing us down afterwards, and reducing us gradually from the warm water to the cold,—we were thinking of Mr. Michael Molloy, and the manner in which he had entrapped us into a confidential conversation. The scoundrel must have plotted it from the very first, must have followed us into the bath, and taken his seat beside us with a deliberately premeditated scheme. He was, too, just the man whom we should not have chosen to see with a worthless magazine article in his hand. We think that we can be efficacious by letter, but we often feel ourselves to be weak when brought face to face with our enemies. At that moment our anger was hot against Mr. Molloy. And yet we were conscious of a something of pride which mingled with our feelings. It was clear to us that Mr. Molloy was no ordinary person; and it did in some degree gratify our feelings that such a one should have taken so much trouble to encounter us. We had found him to be a well-informed, pleasant gentleman; and the fact that he was called Molloy and desired to write for the magazine over which we presided, could not really be taken as detracting from his merits. There had doubtless been a fraud committed on us,—a palpable fraud. The man had extracted assurances from us by a false pretence that he did not know us. But then the idea, on his part, that anything could be gained by his doing so, was in itself a compliment to us. That such a man should take so much trouble to approach us,—one who could quote Horace and talk about the “to kalon,”—was an acknowledgment of our power. As we returned to the outer chamber we looked round to see Mr. Molloy in his usual garments, but he was not as yet there. We waited while we smoked one of our own cigars, but he came not. He had, so far, gained his aim; and, as we presumed, preferred to run the risk of too long a course of hot air to risking his object by seeing us again on that afternoon. At last we left the building, and are bound to confess that our mind dwelt much on Mr. Michael Molloy during the remainder of that evening.

It might be that after all we should gain much by the singular mode of introduction which the man had adopted. He was certainly clever, and if he could write as well as he could talk his services might be of value. Punctually at the hour named he was announced, and we did not now for one moment think of declining the interview. Mr. Molloy had so far succeeded in his stratagem that we could not now resort to the certainly not unusual practice of declaring ourselves to be too closely engaged to see any one, and of sending him word that he should confide to writing whatever he might have to say to us. It had, too, occurred to us that, as Mr. Molloy had paid his three shillings and sixpence for the Turkish bath, he would not prove to be one of that class of visitors whose appeals to tender-hearted editors are so peculiarly painful. “I am willing to work day and night for my wife and children; and if you will use this short paper in your next number it will save us from starvation for a month! Yes, Sir, from,—starvation!” Who is to resist such an appeal as that, or to resent it? But the editor knows that he is bound in honesty to resist it altogether,—so to steel himself against it that it shall have no effect upon him, at least, as regards the magazine which is in his hands. And yet if the short thing be only decently written, if it be not absurdly bad, what harm will its publication do to anyone? If the waste,—let us call it waste,—of half-a-dozen pages will save a family from hunger for a month, will they not be well wasted? But yet, again, such tenderness is absolutely incompatible with common honesty,—and equally so with common prudence. We think that our readers will see the difficulty, and understand how an editor may wish to avoid those interviews with tattered gloves. But my friend, Mr. Michael Molloy, had had three and sixpence to spend on a Turkish bath, had had money wherewith to buy,—certainly, the very vilest of cigars. We thought of all this as Mr. Michael Molloy was ushered into our room.

The first thing we saw was the tattered glove; and then we immediately recognised the stout middle-aged gentleman whom we had seen on the other side of Jermyn Street as we entered the bathing establishment. It had never before occurred to us that the two persons were the same, not though the impression made by the poverty-stricken appearance of the man in the street had remained distinct upon our mind. The features of the gentleman we had hardly even yet seen at all. Nevertheless we had known and distinctly recognised his outward gait and mien, both with and without his clothes. One tattered glove he now wore, and the other he carried in his gloved hand. As we saw this we were aware at once that all our preconception had been wrong, that that too common appeal would be made, and that we must resist it as best we might. There was still a certain jauntiness in his air as he addressed us. “I hope thin,” said he as we shook hands with him, “ye’ll not take amiss the little ruse by which we caught ye.”

“It was a ruse then, Mr. Molloy?”

“Divil a doubt o’ that, Mr. Editor.”

“But you were coming to the Turkish bath independently of our visit there?”

“Sorrow a bath I’d’ve cum to at all, only I saw you go into the place. I’d just three and ninepence in my pocket, and says I to myself, Mick, me boy, it’s a good investment. There was three and sixpence for them savages to rub me down, and threepence for the two cheroots from the little shop round the corner. I wish they’d been better for your sake.”

It had been a plant from beginning to end, and the “to kalon” and the half-dozen words from Horace had all been parts of Mr. Molloy’s little game! And how well he had played it! The outward trappings of the man as we now saw them were poor and mean, and he was mean-looking too, because of his trappings. But there had been nothing mean about him as he strutted along with a blue-checked towel round his body. How well the fellow had understood it all, and had known his own capacity! “And now that you are here, Mr. Molloy, what can we do for you?” we said with as pleasant a smile as we were able to assume. Of course we knew what was to follow. Out came the roll of paper of which we had already seen the end projecting from his breast pocket, and we were assured that we should find the contents of it exactly the thing for our magazine. There is no longer any diffidence in such matters,—no reticence in preferring claims and singing one’s own praises. All that has gone by since competitive examination has become the order of the day. No man, no woman, no girl, no boy, hesitates now to declare his or her own excellence and capability. “It’s just a short thing on social manners,” said Mr. Molloy, “and if ye’ll be so good as to cast ye’r eye over it, I think ye’ll find I’ve hit the nail on the head. ‘The Five-o’clock Tay-table’ is what I’ve called it.”

“Oh!—‘The Five-o’clock Tea-table.’”

“Don’t ye like the name?”

“About social manners, is it?”

“Just a rap on the knuckles for some of ’em. Sharp, short, and decisive! I don’t doubt but what ye’ll like it.”

To declare, as though by instinct, that that was not the kind of thing we wanted, was as much a matter of course as it is for a man buying a horse to say that he does not like the brute’s legs or that he falls away in his quarters. And Mr. Molloy treated our objection just as does the horse-dealer those of his customers. He assured us with a smile,—with a smile behind which we could see the craving eagerness of his heart,—that his little article was just the thing for us. Our immediate answer was of course ready. If he would leave the paper with us, we would look at it and return it if it did not seem to suit us.

There is a half-promise about this reply which too often produces a false satisfaction in the breast of a beginner. With such a one it is the second interview which is to be dreaded. But my friend Mr. Molloy was not new to the work, and was aware that if possible he should make further use of the occasion which he had earned for himself at so considerable a cost. “Ye’ll read it;—will ye?” he said.

“Oh, certainly. We’ll read it certainly.”

“And ye’ll use it if ye can?”

“As to that, Mr. Molloy, we can say nothing. We’ve got to look solely to the interest of the periodical.”

“And, sure, what can ye do better for the periodical than print a paper like that, which there is not a lady at the West End of the town won’t be certain to read?”

“At any rate we’ll look at it, Mr. Molloy,” said we, standing up from our chair.

But still he hesitated in his going,—and did not go. “I’m a married man, Mr. ——,” he said. We simply bowed our head at the announcement. “I wish you could see Mrs. Molloy,” he added. We murmured something as to the pleasure it would give us to make the acquaintance of so estimable a lady. “There isn’t a betther woman than herself this side of heaven, though I say it that oughtn’t,” said he. “And we’ve three young ones.” We knew the argument that was coming;—knew it so well, and yet were so unable to accept it as any argument! “Sit down one moment, Mr. ----,” he continued, “till I tell you a short story.” We pleaded our engagements, averring that they were peculiarly heavy at that moment. “Sure, and we know what that manes,” said Mr. Molloy. “It’s just,—walk out of this as quick as you came in. It’s that what it manes.” And yet as he spoke there was a twinkle of humour in his eye that was almost irresistible; and we ourselves,—we could not forbear to smile. When we smiled we knew that we were lost. “Come, now, Mr. Editor; when you think how much it cost me to get the inthroduction, you’ll listen to me for five minutes any way.”

“We will listen to you,” we said, resuming our chair,—remembering as we did so the three-and-sixpence, the two cigars, the “to kalon,” the line from Pope, and the half line from Horace. The man had taken much trouble with the view of placing himself where he now was. When we had been all but naked together I had taken him to be the superior of the two, and what were we that we should refuse him an interview simply because he had wares to sell which we should only be too willing to buy at his price if they were fit for our use?

Then he told his tale. As for Paris, Constantinople, and New York, he frankly admitted that he knew nothing of those capitals. When we reminded him, with some ill-nature as we thought afterwards, that he had assumed an intimacy with the current literature of the three cities, he told us that such remarks were “just the sparkling gims of conversation in which a man shouldn’t expect to find rale diamonds.” Of “Doblin” he knew every street, every lane, every newspaper, every editor; but the poverty, dependence, and general poorness of a provincial press had crushed him, and he had boldly resolved to try a fight in the “methropolis of litherature.” He referred us to the managers of the “Boyne Bouncer,” the “Clontarf Chronicle,” the “Donnybrook Debater,” and the “Echoes of Erin,” assuring us that we should find him to be as well esteemed as known in the offices of those widely-circulated publications. His reading he told us was unbounded, and the pen was as ready to his hand as is the plough to the hand of the husbandman. Did we not think it a noble ambition in him thus to throw himself into the great “areanay,” as he called it, and try his fortune in the “methropolis of litherature?” He paused for a reply, and we were driven to acknowledge that whatever might be said of our friend’s prudence, his courage was undoubted. “I’ve got it here,” said he. “I’ve got it all here.” And he touched his right breast with the fingers of his left hand, which still wore the tattered glove.

He had succeeded in moving us. “Mr. Molloy,” we said, “we’ll read your paper, and we’ll then do the best we can for you. We must tell you fairly that we hardly like your subject, but if the writing be good you can try your hand at something else.”

“Sure there’s nothing under the sun I won’t write about at your bidding.”

“If we can be of service to you, Mr. Molloy, we will.” Then the editor broke down, and the man spoke to the man. “I need not tell you, Mr. Molloy, that the heart of one man of letters always warms to another.”

“It was because I knew ye was of that sort that I followed ye in yonder,” he said, with a tear in his eye.

The butter-boat of benevolence was in our hand, and we proceeded to pour out its contents freely. It is a vessel which an editor should lock up carefully; and, should he lose the key, he will not be the worse for the loss. We need not repeat here all the pretty things that we said to him, explaining to him from a full heart with how much agony we were often compelled to resist the entreaties of literary suppliants, declaring to him how we had longed to publish tons of manuscript,—simply in order that we might give pleasure to those who brought them to us. We told him how accessible we were to a woman’s tear, to a man’s struggle, to a girl’s face, and assured him of the daily wounds which were inflicted on ourselves by the impossibility of reconciling our duties with our sympathies. “Bedad, thin,” said Mr. Molloy, grasping our hand, “you’ll find none of that difficulty wid me. If you’ll sympathise like a man, I’ll work for you like a horse.” We assured him that we would, really thinking it probable that he might do some useful work for the magazine; and then we again stood up waiting for his departure.

“Now I’ll tell ye a plain truth,” said he, “and ye may do just as ye plaise about it. There isn’t an ounce of tay or a pound of mait along with Mrs. Molloy this moment; and, what’s more, there isn’t a shilling between us to buy it. I never begged in my life;—not yet. But if you can advance me a sovereign on that manuscript it will save me from taking the coat on my back to a pawnbroker’s shop for whatever it’ll fetch there.” We paused a moment as we thought of it all, and then we handed him the coin for which he asked us. If the manuscript should be worthless the loss would be our own. We would not grudge a slice from the wholesome home-made loaf after we had used the butter-boat of benevolence. “It don’t become me,” said Mr. Molloy, “to thank you for such a thrifle as a loan of twenty shillings; but I’ll never forget the feeling that has made you listen to me, and that too after I had been rather down on you at thim baths.” We gave him a kindly nod of the head, and then he took his departure.

“Ye’ll see me again anyways?” he said, and we promised that we would.

We were anxious enough about the manuscript, but we could not examine it at that moment. When our office work was done we walked home with the roll in our pocket, speculating as we went on the probable character of Mr. Molloy. We still believed in him,—still believed in him in spite of the manner in which he had descended in his language, and had fallen into a natural flow of words which alone would not have given much promise of him as a man of letters. But a human being, in regard to his power of production, is the reverse of a rope. He is as strong as his strongest part, and remembering the effect which Molloy’s words had had upon us at the Turkish bath, we still thought that there must be something in him. If so, how pleasant would it be to us to place such a man on his legs,—modestly on his legs, so that he might earn for his wife and bairns that meat and tea which he had told us that they were now lacking. An editor is always striving to place some one modestly on his legs in literature,—on his or her,—striving, and alas! so often failing. Here had come a man in regard to whom, as I walked home with his manuscript in my pocket, I did feel rather sanguine.

Of all the rubbish that I ever read in my life, that paper on the Five-o’clock Tea-table was, I think, the worst. It was not only vulgar, foolish, unconnected, and meaningless; but it was also ungrammatical and unintelligible even in regard to the wording of it. The very spelling was defective. The paper was one with which no editor, sub-editor, or reader would have found it necessary to go beyond the first ten lines before he would have known that to print it would have been quite out of the question. We went through with it because of our interest in the man; but as it was in the beginning, so it was to the end,—a farrago of wretched nonsense, so bad that no one, without experience in such matters, would believe it possible that even the writer should desire the publication of it! It seemed to us to be impossible that Mr. Molloy should ever have written a word for those Hibernian periodicals which he had named to us. He had got our sovereign; and with that, as far as we were concerned, there must be an end of Mr. Molloy. We doubted even whether he would come for his own manuscript.

But he came. He came exactly at the hour appointed, and when we looked at his face we felt convinced that he did not doubt his own success. There was an air of expectant triumph about him which dismayed us. It was clear enough that he was confident that he should take away with him the full price of his article, after deducting the sovereign which he had borrowed. “You like it thin,” he said, before we had been able to compose our features to a proper form for the necessary announcement.

“Mr. Molloy,” we said, “it will not do. You must believe us that it will not do.”

“Not do?”

“No, indeed. We need not explain further;—but,—but,—you had really better turn your hand to some other occupation.”

“Some other occupa-ation!” he exclaimed, opening wide his eyes, and holding up both his hands.

“Indeed we think so, Mr. Molloy.”

“And you’ve read it?”

“Every word of it;—on our honour.”

“And you won’t have it?”

“Well;—no, Mr. Molloy, certainly we cannot take it.”

“Ye reject my article on the Five-o’clock Tay-table!” Looking into his face as he spoke, we could not but be certain that its rejection was to him as astonishing as would have been its acceptance to the readers of the magazine. He put his hand up to his head and stood wondering. “I suppose ye’d better choose your own subject for yourself,” he said, as though by this great surrender on his own part he was getting rid of all the difficulty on ours.

“Mr. Molloy,” we began, “we may as well be candid with you——”

“I’ll tell you what it is,” said he, “I’ve taken such a liking to you there’s nothing I won’t do to plaise ye. I’ll just put it in my pocket, and begin another for ye as soon as the children have had their bit of dinner.” At last we did succeed, or thought that we succeeded, in making him understand that we regarded the case as being altogether hopeless, and were convinced that it was beyond his powers to serve us. “And I’m to be turned off like that,” he said, bursting into open tears as he threw himself into a chair and hid his face upon the table. “Ah! wirra, wirra, what’ll I do at all? Sure, and didn’t I think it was fixed as firm between us as the Nelson monument? When ye handselled me with the money, didn’t I think it was as good as done and done?” I begged him not to regard the money, assuring him that he was welcome to the sovereign. “There’s my wife’ll be brought to bed any day,” he went on to say, “and not a ha’porth of anything ready for it! ’Deed, thin, and the world’s hard. The world’s very hard!” And this was he who had talked to me about Constantinople and New York at the baths, and had made me believe that he was a well-informed, well-to-do man of the world!

Even now we did not suspect that he was lying to us. Why he should be such as he seemed to be was a mystery; but even yet we believed in him after a fashion. That he was sorely disappointed and broken-hearted because of his wife, was so evident to us, that we offered him another sovereign, regarding it as the proper price of that butter-boat of benevolence which we had permitted ourselves to use. But he repudiated our offer. “I’ve never begged,” said he, “and, for myself, I’d sooner starve. And Mary Jane would sooner starve than I should beg. It will be best for us both to put an end to ourselves and to have done with it.” This was very melancholy; and as he lay with his head upon the table, we did not see how we were to induce him to leave us.

“You’d better take the sovereign,—just for the present,” we said.

“Niver!” said he, looking up for a moment, “niver!” And still he continued to sob. About this period of the interview, which before it was ended was a very long interview, we ourselves made a suggestion the imprudence of which we afterwards acknowledged to ourselves. We offered to go to his lodgings and see his wife and children. Though the man could not write a good magazine article, yet he might be a very fitting object for our own personal kindness. And the more we saw of the man, the more we liked him,—in spite of his incapacity. “The place is so poor,” he said, objecting to our offer. After what had passed between us, we felt that that could be no reason against our visit, and we began for a moment to fear that he was deceiving us. “Not yet,” he cried, “not quite yet. I will try once again;—once again. You will let me see you once more?”

“And you will take the other sovereign,” we said,—trying him. He should have had the other sovereign if he would have taken it; but we confess that had he done so then we should have regarded him as an impostor. But he did not take it, and left us in utter ignorance as to his true character.

After an interval of three days he came again, and there was exactly the same appearance. He wore the same tattered gloves. He had not pawned his coat. There was the same hat,—shabby when observed closely, but still carrying a decent appearance when not minutely examined. In his face there was no sign of want, and at moments there was a cheeriness about him which was almost refreshing. “I’ve got a something this time that I think ye must like,—unless you’re harder to plaise than Rhadhamanthus.” So saying, he tendered me another roll of paper, which I at once opened, intending to read the first page of it. The essay was entitled the “Church of England;—a Question for the People.” It was handed to me as having been written within the last three days; and, from its bulk, might have afforded fair work for a fortnight to a writer accustomed to treat of subjects of such weight. As we had expected, the first page was unintelligible, absurd, and farcical. We began to be angry with ourselves for having placed ourselves in such a connection with a man so utterly unable to do that which he pretended to do. “I think I’ve hit it off now,” said he, watching our face as we were reading.

The reader need not be troubled with a minute narrative of the circumstances as they occurred during the remainder of the interview. What had happened before was repeated very closely. He wondered, he remonstrated, he complained, and he wept. He talked of his wife and family, and talked as though up to this last moment he had felt confident of success. Judging from his face as he entered the room, we did not doubt but that he had been confident. His subsequent despair was unbounded, and we then renewed our offer to call on his wife. After some hesitation he gave us an address in Hoxton, begging us to come after seven in the evening if it were possible. He again declined the offer of money, and left us, understanding that we would visit his wife on the following evening. “You are quite sure about the manuscript?” he said as he left us. We replied that we were quite sure.

On the following day we dined early at our club and walked in the evening to the address which Mr. Molloy had given us in Hoxton. It was a fine evening in August, and our walk made us very warm. The street named was a decent little street, decent as far as cleanliness and newness could make it; but there was a melancholy sameness about it, and an apparent absence of object, which would have been very depressing to our own spirits. It led nowhither, and had been erected solely with the view of accommodating decent people with small incomes. We at once priced the houses in our mind at ten and sixpence a week, and believed them to be inhabited by pianoforte-tuners, coach-builders, firemen, and public-office messengers. There was no squalor about the place, but it was melancholy, light-coloured and depressive. We made our way to No. 14, and finding the door open entered the passage. “Come in,” cried the voice of our friend; and in the little front parlour we found him seated with a child on each knee, while a winning little girl of about twelve was sitting in a corner of the room, mending her stockings. The room itself and the appearance of all around us were the very opposite of what we had expected. Everything no doubt was plain,—was, in a certain sense, poor; but nothing was poverty-stricken. The children were decently clothed and apparently were well fed. Mr. Molloy himself, when he saw me, had that twinkle of humour in his eye which I had before observed, and seemed to be afflicted at the moment with none of that extreme agony which he had exhibited more than once in our presence. “Please, Sir, mother aint in from the hospital,—not yet,” said the little girl, rising up from her chair; but it’s past seven and she won’t be long. “This announcement created some surprise. We had indeed heard that of Mrs. Molloy which might make it very expedient that she should seek the accommodation of an hospital, but we could not understand that in such circumstances she should be able to come home regularly at seven o’clock in the evening. Then there was a twinkle in our friend Molloy’s eye which almost made us think for the moment that we had been made the subject of some, hitherto unintelligible, hoax. And yet there had been the man at the baths in Jermyn Street, and the two manuscripts had been in our hands, and the man had wept as no man weeps for a joke. “You would come, you know,” said Mr. Molloy, who had now put down the two bairns and had risen from his seat to greet us.

“We are glad to see you so comfortable,” we replied.

“Father is quite comfortable, Sir,” said the little girl. We looked into Mr. Molloy’s face and saw nothing but the twinkle in the eye. We had certainly been “done” by the most elaborate hoax that had ever been perpetrated. We did not regret the sovereign so much as those outpourings from the butter-boat of benevolence of which we felt that we had been cheated. “Here’s mother,” said the girl running to the door. Mr. Molloy stood grinning in the middle of the room with the youngest child again in his arms. He did not seem to be in the least ashamed of what he had done, and even at that moment conveyed to us more of liking for his affection for the little boy than of anger for the abominable prank that he had played us.

That he had lied throughout was evident as soon as we saw Mrs. Molloy. Whatever ailment might have made it necessary that she should visit the hospital, it was not one which could interfere at all with her power of going and returning. She was a strong hearty-looking woman of about forty, with that mixture in her face of practical kindness with severity in details which we often see in strong-minded women who are forced to take upon themselves the management and government of those around them. She courtesied, and took off her bonnet and shawl, and put a bottle into a cupboard, as she addressed us. “Mick said as you was coming, Sir, and I’m sure we is glad to see you;—only sorry for the trouble, Sir.”

We were so completely in the dark that we hardly knew how to be civil to her,—hardly knew whether we ought to be civil to her or not. “We don’t quite understand why we’ve been brought here,” we said, endeavouring to maintain, at any rate a tone of good-humour. He was still embracing the little boy, but there had now come a gleam of fun across his whole countenance, and he seemed to be almost shaking his sides with laughter. “Your husband represented himself as being in distress,” we said gravely. We were restrained by a certain delicacy from informing the woman of the kind of distress to which Mr. Molloy had especially alluded,—most falsely.

“Lord love you, Sir,” said the woman, “just step in here.” Then she led us into a little back room in which there was a bedstead, and an old writing-desk or escritoire, covered with papers. Her story was soon told. Her husband was a madman.

“Mad!” we said, preparing for escape from what might be to us most serious peril.

“He wouldn’t hurt a mouse,” said Mrs. Molloy. “As for the children, he’s that good to them, there aint a young woman in all London that’d be better at handling ’em.” Then we heard her story, in which it appeared to us that downright affection for the man was the predominant characteristic. She herself was, as she told us, head day nurse at Saint Patrick’s Hospital, going there every morning at eight, and remaining till six or seven. For these services she received thirty shillings a week and her board, and she spoke of herself and her husband as being altogether removed from pecuniary distress. Indeed, while the money part of the question was being discussed, she opened a little drawer in the desk and handed us back our sovereign, almost without an observation. Molloy himself had “come of decent people.” On this point she insisted very often, and gave us to understand that he was at this moment in receipt of a pension of a hundred a year from his family. He had been well educated, she said, having been at Trinity College, Dublin, till he had been forced to leave his university for some slight, but repeated irregularity. Early in life he had proclaimed his passion for the press, and when he and she were married absolutely was earning a living in Dublin by some use of the scissors and paste-pot. The whole tenor of his career I could not learn, though Mrs. Molloy would have told us everything had time allowed. Even during the years of his sanity in Dublin he had only been half-sane, treating all the world around him with the effusions of his terribly fertile pen. “He’ll write all night if I’ll let him have a candle,” said Mrs. Molloy. We asked her why she did let him have a candle, and made some enquiry as to the family expenditure in paper. The paper, she said, was given to him from the office of a newspaper which she would not name, and which Molloy visited regularly every day. “There aint a man in all London works harder,” said Mrs. Molloy. “He is mad. I don’t say nothing against it. But there is some of it so beautiful, I wonder they don’t print it.” This was the only word she spoke with which we could not agree. “Ah, Sir,” said she; “you haven’t seen his poetry!” We were obliged to tell her that seeing poetry was the bane of our existence.

There was an easy absence of sham about this woman, and an acceptance of life as it had come to her, which delighted us. She complained of nothing, and was only anxious to explain the little eccentricities of her husband. When we alluded to some of his marvellously untrue assertions, she stopped us at once. “He do lie,” she said. “Certainly he do. How he makes them all out is wonderful. But he wouldn’t hurt a fly.” It was evident to us that she not only loved her husband, but admired him. She showed us heaps of manuscript with which the old drawers were crammed; and yet that paper on the Church of England had been new work, done expressly for us.

When the story had been told we went back to him, and he received us with a smile. “Good-bye, Molloy,” we said. “Good-bye to you, Sir,” he replied, shaking hands with us. We looked at him closely, and could hardly believe that it was the man who had sat by us at the Turkish bath.

He never troubled us again or came to our office, but we have often called on him, and have found that others of our class do the same. We have even helped to supply him with the paper which he continues to use,—we presume for the benefit of other editors.

JOSEPHINE DE MONTMORENCI.

JOSEPHINE DE MONTMORENCI.

THE little story which we are about to relate refers to circumstances which occurred some years ago, and we desire therefore, that all readers may avoid the fault of connecting the personages of the tale,—either the editor who suffered so much, and who behaved, we think, so well, or the ladies with whom he was concerned,—with any editor or with any ladies known to such readers either personally or by name. For though the story as told is a true story, we who tell it have used such craft in the telling, that we defy the most astute to fix the time or to recognise the characters. It will be sufficient if the curious will accept it as a fact that at some date since magazines became common in the land, a certain editor, sitting in his office, came upon the perusal of the following letter, addressed to him by name:—

“19, King-Charles Street,
“1st May, 18—.

“Dear Sir,

“I think that literature needs no introduction, and, judging of you by the character which you have made for yourself in its paths, I do not doubt but you will feel as I do. I shall therefore write to you without reserve. I am a lady not possessing that modesty which should make me hold a low opinion of my own talents, and equally free from that feeling of self-belittlement which induces so many to speak humbly while they think proudly of their own acquirements. Though I am still young, I have written much for the press, and I believe I may boast that I have sometimes done so successfully. Hitherto I have kept back my name, but I hope soon to be allowed to see it on the title-page of a book which shall not shame me.

“My object in troubling you is to announce the fact, agreeable enough to myself, that I have just completed a novel in three volumes, and to suggest to you that it should make its first appearance to the world in the pages of the magazine under your control. I will frankly tell you that I am not myself fond of this mode of publication; but Messrs. X., Y., Z., of Paternoster Row, with whom you are doubtless acquainted, have assured me that such will be the better course. In these matters one is still terribly subject to the tyranny of the publishers, who surely of all cormorants are the most greedy, and of all tyrants are the most arrogant. Though I have never seen you, I know you too well to suspect for a moment that my words will ever be repeated to my respectable friends in the Row.

“Shall I wait upon you with my MS.,—or will you call for it? Or perhaps it may be better that I should send it to you. Young ladies should not run about,—even after editors; and it might be so probable that I should not find you at home. Messrs. X., Y., and Z. have read the MS.,—or more probably the young man whom they keep for the purpose has done so,—and the nod of approval has been vouchsafed. Perhaps this may suffice; but if a second examination be needful, the work is at your service.

“Yours faithfully, and in hopes of friendly relations,
“Josephine de Montmorenci.

“I am English, though my unfortunate name will sound French in your ears.”

For facility in the telling of our story we will call this especial editor Mr. Brown. Mr. Brown’s first feeling on reading the letter was decidedly averse to the writer. But such is always the feeling of editors to would-be contributors, though contributions are the very food on which an editor must live. But Mr. Brown was an unmarried man, who loved the rustle of feminine apparel, who delighted in the brightness of a woman’s eye when it would be bright for him, and was not indifferent to the touch of a woman’s hand. As editors go, or went then, he knew his business, and was not wont to deluge his pages with weak feminine ware in return for smiles and flattering speeches,—as editors have done before now; but still he liked an adventure, and was perhaps afflicted by some slight flaw of judgment, in consequence of which the words of pretty women found with him something of preponderating favour. Who is there that will think evil of him because it was so?

He read the letter a second time, and did not send that curt, heart-rending answer which is so common to editors,—“The editor’s compliments and thanks, but his stock of novels is at present so great that he cannot hope to find room for the work which has been so kindly suggested.”

Of King-Charles Street, Brown could not remember that he had ever heard, and he looked it out at once in the Directory. There was a King-Charles Street in Camden Town, at No. 19 of which street it was stated that a Mr. Puffle resided. But this told him nothing. Josephine de Montmorenci might reside with Mrs. Puffle in Camden Town, and yet write a good novel,—or be a very pretty girl. And there was a something in the tone of the letter which made him think that the writer was no ordinary person. She wrote with confidence. She asked no favour. And then she declared that Messrs. X., Y., Z., with whom Mr. Brown was intimate, had read and approved her novel. Before he answered the note he would call in the Row and ask a question or two.

He did call, and saw Mr. Z. Mr. Z. remembered well that the MS. had been in their house. He rather thought that X., who was out of town, had seen Miss Montmorenci,—perhaps on more than one occasion. The novel had been read, and,—well, Mr. Z. would not quite say approved; but it had been thought that there was a good deal in it. “I think I remember X. telling me that she was an uncommon pretty young woman,” said Z.,—“and there is some mystery about her. I didn’t see her myself, but I am sure there was a mystery.” Mr. Brown made up his mind that he would, at any rate, see the MS.

He felt disposed to go at once to Camden Town, but still had fears that in doing so he might seem to make himself too common. There are so many things of which an editor is required to think! It is almost essential that they who are ambitious of serving under him should believe that he is enveloped in MSS. from morning to night,—that he cannot call an hour his own,—that he is always bringing out that periodical of his in a frenzy of mental exertion,—that he is to be approached only with difficulty,—and that a call from him is a visit from a god. Mr. Brown was a Jupiter, willing enough on occasions to go a little out of his way after some literary Leda, or even on behalf of a Danae desirous of a price for her compositions;—but he was obliged to acknowledge to himself that the occasion had not as yet arisen. So he wrote to the young lady as follows:—

“Office of the Olympus Magazine,
“4th May, 18—.

“The Editor presents his compliments to Miss de Montmorenci, and will be very happy to see her MS. Perhaps she will send it to the above address. The Editor has seen Mr. Z., of Paternoster Row, who speaks highly of the work. A novel, however, may be very clever and yet hardly suit a magazine. Should it be accepted by the ‘Olympus,’ some time must elapse before it appears. The Editor would be very happy to see Miss de Montmorenci if it would suit her to call any Friday between the hours of two and three.”

When the note was written Mr. Brown felt that it was cold;—but then it behoves an editor to be cold. A gushing editor would ruin any publication within six months. Young women are very nice; pretty young women are especially nice; and of all pretty young women, clever young women who write novels are perhaps as nice as any;—but to an editor they are dangerous. Mr. Brown was at this time about forty, and had had his experiences. The letter was cold, but he was afraid to make it warmer. It was sent;—and when he received the following answer, it may fairly be said that his editorial hair stood on end:

“Dear Mr. Brown,

“I hate you and your compliments. That sort of communication means nothing, and I won’t send you my MS. unless you are more in earnest about it. I know the way in which rolls of paper are shoved into pigeon-holes and left there till they are musty, while the writers’ hearts are being broken. My heart may be broken some day, but not in that way.

“I won’t come to you between two and three on Friday. It sounds a great deal too like a doctor’s appointment, and I don’t think much of you if you are only at your work one hour in the week. Indeed, I won’t go to you at all. If an interview is necessary you can come here. But I don’t know that it will be necessary.

“Old X. is a fool and knows nothing about it. My own approval is to me very much more than his. I don’t suppose he’d know the inside of a book if he saw it. I have given the very best that is in me to my work, and I know that it is good. Even should you say that it is not I shall not believe you. But I don’t think you will say so, because I believe you to be in truth a clever fellow in spite of your ‘compliments’ and your ‘two and three o’clock on a Friday.’

“If you want to see my MS., say so with some earnestness, and it shall be conveyed to you. And please to say how much I shall be paid for it, for I am as poor as Job. And name a date. I won’t be put off with your ‘some time must elapse.’ It shall see the light, or, at least, a part of it, within six months. That is my intention. And don’t talk nonsense to me about clever novels not suiting magazines,—unless you mean that as an excuse for publishing so many stupid ones as you do.

“You will see that I am frank; but I really do mean what I say. I want it to come out in the ‘Olympus;’ and if we can I shall be so happy to come to terms with you.

“Yours as I find you,
“Josephine de Montmorenci.”

“Thursday—King-Charles Street.”

This was an epistle to startle an editor as coming from a young lady; but yet there was something in it that seemed to imply strength. Before answering it Mr. Brown did a thing which he must be presumed to have done as man and not as editor. He walked off to King-Charles Street in Camden Town, and looked at the house. It was a nice little street, very quiet, quite genteel, completely made up with what we vaguely call gentlemen’s houses, with two windows to each drawing-room, and with a balcony to some of them, the prettiest balcony in the street belonging to No. 19, near the park, and equally removed from poverty and splendour. Brown walked down the street, on the opposite side, towards the park, and looked up at the house. He intended to walk at once homewards, across the park, to his own little home in St. John’s Wood Road; but when he had passed half a street away from the Puffle residence, he turned to have another look, and retraced his steps. As he passed the door it was opened, and there appeared upon the steps,—one of the prettiest little women he had ever seen in his life. She was dressed for walking, with that jaunty, broad, open bonnet which women then wore, and seemed, as some women do seem, to be an amalgam of softness, prettiness, archness, fun, and tenderness,—and she carried a tiny blue parasol. She was fair, gray-eyed, dimpled, all alive, and dressed so nicely and yet simply, that Mr. Brown was carried away for the moment by a feeling that he would like to publish her novel, let it be what it might. And he heard her speak. “Charles,” she said, “you sha’n’t smoke.” Our editor could, of course, only pass on, and had not an opportunity of even seeing Charles. At the corner of the street he turned round and saw them walking the other way. Josephine was leaning on Charles’s arm. She had, however, distinctly avowed herself to be a young lady,—in other words, an unmarried woman. There was, no doubt, a mystery, and Mr. Brown felt it to be incumbent on him to fathom it. His next letter was as follows:—

“My dear Miss de Montmorenci,

“I am sorry that you should hate me and my compliments. I had intended to be as civil and as nice as possible. I am quite in earnest, and you had better send the MS. As to all the questions you ask, I cannot answer them to any purpose till I have read the story,—which I will promise to do without subjecting it to the pigeon-holes. If you do not like Friday, you shall come on Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday, or Saturday, or even on Sunday, if you wish it;—and at any hour, only let it be fixed.

“Yours faithfully,
“Jonathan Brown.”

“Friday.”

In the course of the next week the novel came, with another short note, to which was attached no ordinary beginning or ending. “I send my treasure, and, remember, I will have it back in a week if you do not intend to keep it. I have not £5 left in the world, and I owe my milliner ever so much, and money at the stables where I get a horse. And I am determined to go to Dieppe in July. All must come out of my novel. So do be a good man. If you are I will see you.” Herein she declared plainly her own conviction that she had so far moved the editor by her correspondence,—for she knew nothing, of course, of that ramble of his through King-Charles Street,—as to have raised in his bosom a desire to see her. Indeed, she made no secret of such conviction. “Do as I wish,” she said plainly, “and I will gratify you by a personal interview.” But the interview was not to be granted till the novel had been accepted and the terms fixed,—such terms, too, as it would be very improbable that any editor could accord.

“Not so Black as he’s Painted;”—that was the name of the novel which it now became the duty of Mr. Brown to read. When he got it home, he found that the writing was much worse than that of the letters. It was small, and crowded, and carried through without those technical demarcations which are so comfortable to printers, and so essential to readers. The erasures were numerous, and bits of the story were written, as it were, here and there. It was a manuscript to which Mr. Brown would not have given a second glance, had there not been an adventure behind it. The very sending of such a manuscript to any editor would have been an impertinence, if it were sent by any but a pretty woman. Mr. Brown, however, toiled over it, and did read it,—read it, or at least enough of it to make him know what it was. The verdict which Mr. Z. had given was quite true. No one could have called the story stupid. No mentor experienced in such matters would have ventured on such evidence to tell the aspirant that she had mistaken her walk in life, and had better sit at home and darn her stockings. Out of those heaps of ambitious manuscripts which are daily subjected to professional readers such verdicts may safely be given in regard to four-fifths,—either that the aspirant should darn her stockings, or that he should prune his fruit trees. It is equally so with the works of one sex as with those of the other. The necessity of saying so is very painful, and the actual stocking, or the fruit tree itself, is not often named. The cowardly professional reader indeed, unable to endure those thorns in the flesh of which poor Thackeray spoke so feelingly, when hard-pressed for definite answers, generally lies. He has been asked to be candid, but he cannot bring himself to undertake a duty so onerous, so odious, and one as to which he sees so little reason that he personally should perform it. But in regard to these aspirations,—to which have been given so much labour, which have produced so many hopes, offsprings which are so dear to the poor parents,—the decision at least is easy. And there are others in regard to which a hopeful reader finds no difficulty,—as to which he feels assured that he is about to produce to the world the fruit of some new-found genius. But there are doubtful cases which worry the poor judge till he knows not how to trust his own judgment. At this page he says, “Yes, certainly;” at the next he shakes his head as he sits alone amidst his papers. Then he is dead against the aspirant. Again there is improvement, and he asks himself,—where is he to find anything that is better? As our editor read Josephine’s novel,—he had learned to call her Josephine in that silent speech in which most of us indulge, and which is so necessary to an editor,—he was divided between Yes and No throughout the whole story. Once or twice he found himself wiping his eyes, and then it was all “yes” with him. Then he found the pages ran with a cruel heaviness, which seemed to demand decisive editorial severity. A whole novel, too, is so great a piece of business! There would be such difficulty were he to accept it! How much must he cut out! How many of his own hours must he devote to the repairing of mutilated sentences, and the remodelling of indistinct scenes! In regard to a small piece an editor, when moved that way, can afford to be good-natured. He can give to it the hour or so of his own work which it may require. And if after all it be nothing—or, as will happen sometimes, much worse than nothing,—the evil is of short duration. In admitting such a thing he has done an injury,—but the injury is small. It passes in the crowd, and is forgotten. The best Homer that ever edited must sometimes nod. But a whole novel! A piece of work that would last him perhaps for twelve months! No editor can afford to nod for so long a period.

But then this tale, this novel of “Not so Black as he’s Painted,” this story of a human devil, for whose crimes no doubt some Byronic apology was made with great elaboration by the sensational Josephine, was not exactly bad. Our editor had wept over it. Some tender-hearted Medora, who on behalf of her hyena-in-love had gone through miseries enough to kill half a regiment of heroines, had dimmed the judge’s eyes with tears. What stronger proof of excellence can an editor have? But then there were those long pages of metaphysical twaddle, sure to elicit scorn and neglect from old and young. They, at any rate, must be cut out. But in the cutting of them out a very mincemeat would be made of the story. And yet Josephine de Montmorenci, with her impudent little letters, had already made herself so attractive! What was our editor to do?

He knew well the difficulty that would be before him should he once dare to accept, and then undertake to alter. She would be as a tigress to him,—as a tigress fighting for her young. That work of altering is so ungracious, so precarious, so incapable of success in its performance! The long-winded, far-fetched, high-stilted, unintelligible sentence which you elide with so much confidence in your judgment, has been the very apple of your author’s eye. In it she has intended to convey to the world the fruits of her best meditation for the last twelve months. Thinking much over many things in her solitude, she has at last invented a truth, and there it lies. That wise men may adopt it, and candid women admire it, is the hope, the solace, and at last almost the certainty of her existence. She repeats the words to herself, and finds that they will form a choice quotation to be used in coming books. It is for the sake of that one newly-invented truth,—so she tells herself, though not quite truly,—that she desires publication. You come,—and with a dash of your pen you annihilate the precious gem! Is it in human nature that you should be forgiven? Mr. Brown had had his experiences, and understood all this well. Nevertheless he loved dearly to please a pretty woman.

And it must be acknowledged that the letters of Josephine were such as to make him sure that there might be an adventure if he chose to risk the pages of his magazine. The novel had taken him four long evenings to read, and at the end of the fourth he sat thinking of it for an hour. Fortune either favoured him or the reverse,—as the reader may choose to regard the question,—in this, that there was room for the story in his periodical if he chose to take it. He wanted a novel,—but then he did not want feminine metaphysics. He sat thinking of it, wondering in his mind how that little smiling, soft creature with the gray eyes, and the dimples, and the pretty walking-dress, could have written those interminable pages as to the questionable criminality of crime; whether a card-sharper might not be a hero; whether a murderer might not sacrifice his all, even the secret of his murder, for the woman he loved; whether devil might not be saint, and saint devil. At the end of the hour he got up from his chair, stretched himself, with his hands in his trousers-pockets, and said aloud, though alone, that he’d be d—— if he would. It was an act of great self-denial, a triumph of principle over passion.

But though he had thus decided, he was not minded to throw over altogether either Josephine or her novel. He might still, perhaps, do something for her if he could find her amenable to reason. Thinking kindly of her, very anxious to know her personally, and still desirous of seeing the adventure to the end, he wrote the following note to her that evening:—

‘Cross Bank, St. John’s Wood,
“Saturday Night.

“My dear Miss de Montmorenci,

“I knew how it would be. I cannot give you an answer about your novel without seeing you. It so often happens that the answer can’t be Yes or No. You said something very cruel about dear old X., but after all he was quite right in his verdict about the book. There is a great deal in it; but it evidently was not written to suit the pages of a magazine. Will you come to me, or shall I come to you;—or shall I send the MS. back, and so let there be an end of it? You must decide. If you direct that the latter course be taken, I will obey; but I shall do so with most sincere regret, both on account of your undoubted aptitude for literary work, and because I am very anxious to become acquainted with my fair correspondent. You see I can be as frank as you are yourself.

“Yours most faithfully,
“Jonathan Brown.

“My advice to you would be to give up the idea of publishing this tale in parts, and to make terms with X., Y., and Z.,—in endeavouring to do which I shall be most happy to be of service to you.’

This note he posted on the following day, and when he returned home on the next night from his club, he found three replies from the divine, but irritable and energetic, Josephine. We will give them according to their chronology.

No. 1. “Monday Morning.—Let me have my MS. back,—and pray, without any delay.—J. de M.”

No. 2. “Monday, 2 o’clock.—How can you have been so ill-natured,—and after keeping it twelve days?” His answer had been written within a week of the receipt of the parcel at his office, and he had acted with a rapidity which nothing but some tender passion would have instigated.—“What you say about being clever, and yet not fit for a magazine, is rubbish. I know it is rubbish. I do not wish to see you. Why should I see a man who will do nothing to oblige me? If X., Y., Z. choose to buy it, at once, they shall have it. But I mean to be paid for it, and I think you have behaved very ill to me.—Josephine.”

No. 3. “Monday Evening.—My dear Mr. Brown,—Can you wonder that I should have lost my temper and almost my head? I have written twice before to-day, and hardly know what I said. I cannot understand you editing people. You are just like women;—you will and you won’t. I am so unhappy. I had allowed myself to feel almost certain that you would take it, and have told that cross man at the stables he should have his money. Of course I can’t make you publish it;—but how you can put in such yards of stupid stuff, all about nothing on earth, and then send back a novel which you say yourself is very clever, is what I can’t understand. I suppose it all goes by favour, and the people who write are your uncles, and aunts, and grandmothers, and lady-loves. I can’t make you do it, and therefore I suppose I must take your advice about those old hugger-muggers in Paternoster Row. But there are ever so many things you must arrange. I must have the money at once. And I won’t put up with just a few pounds. I have been at work upon that novel for more than two years, and I know that it is good. I hate to be grumbled at, and complained of, and spoken to as if a publisher were doing me the greatest favour in the world when he is just going to pick my brains to make money of them. I did see old X., or old Z., or old Y., and the snuffy old fellow told me that if I worked hard I might do something some day. I have worked harder than ever he did,—sitting there and squeezing brains, and sucking the juice out of them like an old ghoul. I suppose I had better see you, because of money and all that. I’ll come, or else send some one, at about two on Wednesday. I can’t put it off till Friday, and I must be home by three. You might as well go to X., Y., Z., in the meantime, and let me know what they say.—J. de M.”

There was an unparalleled impudence in all this which affronted, amazed, and yet in part delighted our editor. Josephine evidently regarded him as her humble slave, who had already received such favours as entitled her to demand from him any service which she might require of him. “You might as well go to X., Y., Z., and let me know what they say!” And then that direct accusation against him,—that all went by favour with him! “I think you have behaved very ill to me!” Why,—had he not gone out of his way, very much out of his way indeed, to do her a service? Was he not taking on her behalf an immense trouble for which he looked for no remuneration,—unless remuneration should come in that adventure of which she had but a dim foreboding? All this was unparalleled impudence. But then impudence from pretty women is only sauciness; and such sauciness is attractive. None but a very pretty woman who openly trusted in her prettiness would dare to write such letters, and the girl whom he had seen on the door-step was very pretty. As to his going to X., Y., Z., before he had seen her, that was out of the question. That very respectable firm in the Row would certainly not give money for a novel without considerable caution, without much talking, and a regular understanding and bargain. As a matter of course, they would take time to consider. X., Y., and Z. were not in a hurry to make money to pay a milliner or to satisfy a stable-keeper, and would have but little sympathy for such troubles;—all which it would be Mr. Brown’s unpleasant duty to explain to Josephine de Montmorenci.

But though this would be unpleasant, still there might be pleasure. He could foresee that there would be a storm, with much pouting, some violent complaint, and perhaps a deluge of tears. But it would be for him to dry the tears and allay the storm. The young lady could do him no harm, and must at last be driven to admit that his kindness was disinterested. He waited, therefore, for the Wednesday, and was careful to be at the office of his magazine at two o’clock. In the ordinary way of his business the office would not have seen him on that day, but the matter had now been present in his mind so long, and had been so much considered, had assumed so large a proportion in his thoughts,—that he regarded not at all this extra trouble. With an air of indifference he told the lad who waited upon him as half clerk and half errand-boy, that he expected a lady; and then he sat down, as though to compose himself to his work. But no work was done. Letters were not even opened. His mind was full of Josephine de Montmorenci. If all the truth is to be told, it must be acknowledged that he did not even wear the clothes that were common to him when he sat in his editorial chair. He had prepared himself somewhat, and a new pair of gloves was in his hat. It might be that circumstances would require him to accompany Josephine at least a part of the way back to Camden Town.

At half-past two the lady was announced,—Miss de Montmorenci; and our editor, with palpitating heart, rose to welcome the very figure, the very same pretty walking-dress, the same little blue parasol, which he had seen upon the steps of the house in King-Charles Street. He could swear to the figure, and to the very step, although he could not as yet see the veiled face. And this was a joy to him; for, though he had not allowed himself to doubt much, he had doubted a little whether that graceful houri might or might not be his Josephine. Now she was there, present to him in his own castle, at his mercy as it were, so that he might dry her tears and bid her hope, or tell her that there was no hope so that she might still weep on, just as he pleased. It was not one of those cases in which want of bread and utter poverty are to be discussed. A horsekeeper’s bill and a visit to Dieppe were the melodramatic incidents of the tragedy, if tragedy it must be. Mr. Brown had in his time dealt with cases in which a starving mother or a dying father was the motive to which appeal was made. At worst there could be no more than a rose-water catastrophe; and it might be that triumph, and gratitude, and smiles would come. He rose from his chair, and, giving his hand gracefully to his visitor, led her to a seat.

“I am very glad to see you here, Miss de Montmorenci,” he said. Then the veil was raised, and there was the pretty face half blushing half smiling, wearing over all a mingled look of fun and fear.

“We are so much obliged to you, Mr. Brown, for all the trouble you have taken,” she said.

“Don’t mention it. It comes in the way of my business to take such trouble. The annoyance is in this, that I can so seldom do what is wanted.”

“It is so good of you to do anything!”

“An editor is, of course, bound to think first of the periodical which he produces.” This announcement Mr. Brown made, no doubt, with some little air of assumed personal dignity. The fact was one which no heaven-born editor ever forgets.

“Of course, Sir. And no doubt there are hundreds who want to get their things taken.”

“A good many there are, certainly.”

“And everything can’t be published,” said the sagacious beauty.

“No, indeed; very much comes into our hands which cannot be published,” replied the experienced editor. “But this novel of yours, perhaps, may be published.”

“You think so?”

“Indeed I do. I cannot say what X., Y., and Z. may say to it. I’m afraid they will not do more than offer half profits.”

“And that doesn’t mean any money paid at once?” asked the lady plaintively.

“I’m afraid not.”

“Ah! if that could be managed!”

“I haven’t seen the publishers, and of course I can say nothing myself. You see I’m so busy myself with my uncles, and aunts, and grandmothers, and lady-loves——”

“Ah,—that was very naughty, Mr. Brown.”

“And then, you know, I have so many yards of stupid stuff to arrange.”

“Oh, Mr. Brown, you should forget all that!”

“So I will. I could not resist the temptation of telling you of it again, because you are so much mistaken in your accusation. And now about your novel.”

“It isn’t mine, you know.”

“Not yours?”

“Not my own, Mr. Brown.”

“Then whose is it?”

Mr. Brown, as he asked this question, felt that he had a right to be offended. “Are you not Josephine de Montmorenci?”

“Me an author! Oh no, Mr. Brown,” said the pretty little woman. And our editor almost thought that he could see a smile on her lips as she spoke.

“Then who are you?” asked Mr. Brown.

“I am her sister;—or rather her sister-in-law. My name is Mrs. Puffle.” How could Mrs. Puffle be the sister-in-law of Miss de Montmorenci? Some such thought as this passed through the editor’s mind, but it was not followed out to any conclusion. Relationships are complex things, and, as we all know, give rise to most intricate questions. In the half-moment that was allowed to him Mr. Brown reflected that Mrs. Puffle might be the sister-in-law of a Miss de Montmorenci; or, at least, half sister-in-law. It was even possible that Mrs. Puffle, young as she looked, might have been previously married to a de Montmorenci. Of all that, however, he would not now stop to unravel the details, but endeavoured as he went on to take some comfort from the fact that Puffle was no doubt Charles. Josephine might perhaps have no Charles. And then it became evident to him that the little fair, smiling, dimpled thing before him could hardly have written “Not so Black as he’s Painted,” with all its metaphysics. Josephine must be made of sterner stuff. And, after all, for an adventure, little dimples and a blue parasol are hardly appropriate. There should be more of stature than Mrs. Puffle possessed, with dark hair, and piercing eyes. The colour of the dress should be black, with perhaps yellow trimmings; and the hand should not be of pearly whiteness,—as Mrs. Puffle’s no doubt was, though the well-fitting little glove gave no absolute information on this subject. For such an adventure the appropriate colour of the skin would be,—we will not say sallow exactly,—but running a little that way. The beauty should be just toned by sadness; and the blood, as it comes and goes, should show itself, not in blushes, but in the mellow, changing lines of the brunette. All this Mr. Brown understood very well.

“Oh,—you are Mrs. Puffle,” said Brown, after a short but perhaps insufficient pause. “You are Charles Puffle’s wife?”

“Do you know Charles?” asked the lady, putting up both her little hands. “We don’t want him to hear anything about this. You haven’t told him?”

“I’ve told him nothing as yet,” said Mr. Brown.

“Pray don’t. It’s a secret. Of course he’ll know it some day. Oh, Mr. Brown, you won’t betray us. How very odd that you should know Charles!”

“Does he smoke as much as ever, Mrs. Puffle?”

“How very odd that he never should have mentioned it! Is it at his office that you see him?”

“Well, no; not at his office. How is it that he manages to get away on an afternoon as he does?”

“It’s very seldom,—only two or three times in a month,—when he really has a headache from sitting at his work. Dear me, how odd! I thought he told me everything, and he never mentioned your name.”

“You needn’t mention mine, Mrs. Puffle, and the secret shall be kept. But you haven’t told me about the smoking. Is he as inveterate as ever?”

“Of course he smokes. They all smoke. I suppose then he used always to be doing it before he married. I don’t think men ever tell the real truth about things, though girls always tell everything.”

“And now about your sister’s novel?” asked Mr. Brown, who felt that he had mystified the little woman sufficiently about her husband.

“Well, yes. She does want to get some money so badly! And it is clever;—isn’t it? I don’t think I ever read anything cleverer. Isn’t it enough to take your breath away when Orlando defends himself before the lords?” This referred to a very high flown passage which Mr. Brown had determined to cut out when he was thinking of printing the story for the pages of the “Olympus.” “And she will be so broken-hearted! I hope you are not angry with her because she wrote in that way.”

“Not in the least. I liked her letters. She wrote what she really thought.”

“That is so good of you! I told her that I was sure you were good-natured, because you answered so civilly. It was a kind of experiment of hers, you know.”

“Oh,—an experiment!”

“It is so hard to get at people. Isn’t it? If she’d just written, ‘Dear Sir, I send you a manuscript,’—you never would have looked at it:—would you?”

“We read everything, Mrs. Puffle.”

“But the turn for all the things comes so slowly; doesn’t it? So Polly thought——”

“Polly,—what did Polly think?”

“I mean Josephine. We call her Polly just as a nickname. She was so anxious to get you to read it at once! And now what must we do?” Mr. Brown sat silent awhile, thinking. Why did they call Josephine de Montmorenci Polly? But there was the fact of the MS., let the name of the author be what it might. On one thing he was determined. He would take no steps till he had himself seen the lady who wrote the novel. “You’ll go to the gentlemen in Paternoster Row immediately; won’t you?” asked Mrs. Puffle, with a pretty little beseeching look which it was very hard to resist.

“I think I must ask to see the authoress first,” said Mr. Brown.

“Won’t I do?” asked Mrs. Puffle. “Josephine is so particular. I mean she dislikes so very much to talk about her own writings and her own works.” Mr. Brown thought of the tenor of the letters which he had received, and found that he could not reconcile with it this character which was given to him of Miss de Montmorenci. “She has an idea,” continued Mrs. Puffle, “that genius should not show itself publicly. Of course, she does not say that herself. And she does not think herself to be a genius;—though I think it. And she is a genius. There are things in ‘Not so Black as he’s Painted’ which nobody but Polly could have written.”

Nevertheless Mr. Brown was firm. He explained that he could not possibly treat with Messrs. X., Y., and Z.,—if any treating should become possible,—without direct authority from the principal. He must have from Miss de Montmorenci’s mouth what might be the arrangements to which she would accede. If this could not be done he must wash his hands of the affair. He did not doubt, he said, but that Miss de Montmorenci might do quite as well with the publishers by herself, as she could with any aid from him. Perhaps it would be better that she should see Mr. X. herself. But if he, Brown, was to be honoured by any delegated authority, he must see the author. In saying this he implied that he had not the slightest desire to interfere further, and that he had no wish to press himself on the lady. Mrs. Puffle, with just a tear, and then a smile, and then a little coaxing twist of her lips, assured him that their only hope was in him. She would carry his message to Josephine, and he should have a further letter from that lady. “And you won’t tell Charles that I have been here,” said Mrs. Puffle as she took her leave.

“Certainly not. I won’t say a word of it.”

“It is so odd that you should have known him.”

“Don’t let him smoke too much, Mrs. Puffle.”

“I don’t intend. I’ve brought him down to one cigar and a pipe a day,—unless he smokes at the office.”

“They all do that;—nearly the whole day.”