We say no more than the truth of Mr. Brown in declaring that he was now more ready than ever to do whatever might be in his power to forward the views of this young authoress. If he was interested before when he believed her to be beautiful, he was doubly interested for her now when he knew her to be a cripple;--for he had seen when she made that faint attempt to rise that her spine was twisted, and that, when she stood up, her head sank between her shoulders. “I am very glad to make your acquaintance,” he said, seating himself near her. “I should never have been satisfied without doing so.” “It is so very good of you to come,” said Mrs. Puffle. “Of course it is good of him,” said Josephine; “especially after the way we wrote to him. The truth is, Mr. Brown, we were at our wits’ end to catch you.” This was an aspect of the affair which our editor certainly did not like. An attempt to deceive anybody else might have been pardonable; but deceit practised against himself was odious to him. Nevertheless, he did forgive it. The poor little creature before him had worked hard, and had done her best. To teach her to be less metaphysical in her writings, and more straightforward in her own practices, should be his care. There is something to a man inexpressibly sweet in the power of protecting the weak; and no one had ever seemed to be weaker than Josephine. “Miss de Montmorenci,” he said, “we will let bygones be bygones, and will say nothing about the letters. It is no doubt the fact that you did write the novel yourself?” “Every word of it,” said Mrs. Puffle energetically. “Oh, yes; I wrote it,” said Josephine. “And you wish to have it published?” “Indeed I do.” “And you wish to get money for it?” “That is the truest of all,” said Josephine. “Oughtn’t one to be paid when one has worked so very hard?” said Mrs. Puffle. “Certainly one ought to be paid if it can be proved that one’s work is worth buying,” replied the sage mentor of literature. “But isn’t it worth buying?” demanded Mrs. Puffle. “I must say that I think that publishers do buy some that are worse,” observed Josephine. Mr. Brown with words of wisdom explained to them as well as he was able the real facts of the case. It might be that that manuscript, over which the poor invalid had laboured for so many painful hours, would prove to be an invaluable treasure of art, destined to give delight to thousands of readers, and to be, when printed, a source of large profits to publishers, booksellers, and author. Or, again, it might be that, with all its undoubted merits,--and that there were such merits Mr. Brown was eager in acknowledging,--the novel would fail to make any way with the public. “A publisher,”--so said Mr. Brown,--“will hardly venture to pay you a sum of money down, when the risk of failure is so great.” “But Polly has written ever so many things before,” said Mrs. Puffle.