selection, a glass door at the back of the shop opened, and a flashy young yeoman in full uniform, his musket on his shoulder, and whistling the ‘Irish Volunteers,’ marched straight up to me. The impudent boy, winking his eye, said, ‘Here’s a young Miss wants to see yez, Master James.’ Master James marched up to me, chucked me under the chin, ‘and filled me from the top to the toe choke-full of direst cruelty.’ I could have murdered them both. All that was dignified in girlhood and authorship beat at my heart, when a voice from the parlour behind the shop came to my rescue by exclaiming, ‘What are you doing there, Jim—why ain’t you off, sir, for the Phœnix?—and the lawyers’ corps marched an hour ago.’ The next moment, a good-looking, middle-aged man, but in a great passion, with his face half shaved, and a razor and shaving-cloth in his hand, came forth and said, ‘Off wid ye now, sir, like a sky-rocket.’ Jim accordingly shouldered his musket ‘like a sky-rocket,’ and Scrub, leaping over the counter, seized his broom and began to sweep diligently to make up for lost time. The old gentleman gave me a good-humoured glance, and saying, ‘Sit down, honey, and I’ll be with you in a jiffy,’ returned in a few minutes with the other half of his face shaved, and, wiping his hands with a towel, took his place behind the counter, saying, ‘Now, honey, what can I do for you?’ This was altogether so unlike my ideas of the Tonsons, the Dodsleys, and the great Miss Burney, that I was equally inclined to laugh and cry; so the old gentleman repeated his question, ‘Well, what do you want, my dear?’ I hesitated, and at last said, ‘I want to sell a book, please.’ ‘To sell a book, dear,—an ould one, for I sell new ones myself? And what is the name of it, and what’s it about?’ I was now occupied in taking off the rose-coloured ribbon with which I had tied up my MS. ‘What!’ he said; ‘it is a MS., is it!’ ‘The same, sir,’ I said: ‘St Clair.’ ‘Well, now, my dear, I’ve nothing to do with Church books, neither sermons nor tracts, do you see. I take it for granted it is a Papist book by the title.’ ‘No, sir, it is one of sentiment, after the manner of Werter.’ He passed his hand over his face, which left the humorous smile on his face unconcealed. ‘Well, my dear, I never heard of Werter, and am not a publisher of novels at all.’ At this announcement, hot, hurried, flurried, and mortified, I began to tie up my MS. In spite of myself the tears came into my eyes, and poor good-natured Mr Smith said, ‘Don’t cry, my dear; there’s money bid for you yet. But you’re very young to turn author; and what’s your name, dear?’ ‘Owenson, sir,’ I said. ‘Owenson!’ he repeated; ‘are you anything to Mr Owenson of the Theatre-Royal?’ ‘Yes, sir; I am his daughter.’ ‘His daughter—you amaze me!’”