“I have told no one else,” he said, “but I will tell you, Mrs. Crofton, not only because you are our oldest friend, but because I have just told you something so much more important. I--I have written something--nobody knows!” “Oh, you poor boy!” cried I, quite thankful to be able on less delicate ground to make an outcry over him; “don’t you think half the people in the country have written something?--and are you to make an income by that?” “I beg your pardon,” said Johnnie, with dignity, “but it’s _accepted_, Mrs. Crofton--that makes all the difference. Half the country don’t have letters from the booksellers saying that it’s very good and they’ll publish it on the usual terms. I could show you the letter,” added my young author, blushing once more, and putting his hand to his breast-pocket--“I have it here.” And there it was, accordingly, to my intense wonderment--and Johnnie’s hopes had, however small, an actual foundation. On the book about to be published on “the usual terms” the poor boy had built up his castle. Here he was to bring Miss Reredos to a fairy bower of love and literature--which, alas! I doubted would be very little to that young lady’s taste; but I dared not tell Johnnie so--poor, dreaming, foolish cripple-boy! Nothing afterwards, perhaps, would taste so sweet as that delusion, and though the natural idea that “it would be kindness to undeceive him” of course moved me strongly, I had not the boldness to try, knowing very well that it would do no good. He must undeceive himself, that was evident. Thank Heaven he was so young! When his eyes were opened he would be the bitterest and most miserable of misanthropes for a few months, and then, it was to be hoped, things would mend. I saw no other ending to Johnnie’s romance. But he went hobbling away from me with his stick and his stoop, as full of his momentary fallacious happiness, as if he had been the handsome young prince of the fairy tale, whom the love of Miss Reredos would charm back to his proper comeliness. Alas, poor Johnnie! If his Laura could have wrought that miracle I fear the spell was still impossible, for lack of the love--miraculous magic! the only talisman which even in a fairy tale can charm the lost beauty back. CHAPTER XII. “Now, if I had the luck to hold a confidential talk with Maurice, I should have gone round the entire Harley family,” said I to myself the next morning, “and be in the secret of sundry imaginations which have not seen the light of day--but Maurice, fortunately, is not likely to make me nor any one else his _confidante_. I wonder if there is anything at all concerning him which it would be worth one’s while to be curious about?”