“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.