These words were uttered aloud by Mr. Black as he sat alone in his editorial office, engaged in the laborious work of reading manuscript. He was a reserved man; indeed, he had to be, for nothing but his great self-possession and power of concentration could have enabled him to get through with the duties of his position. With the aid of these, however, he did accomplish them thoroughly and systematically, and was always deliberate in his manner--rarely hurried, and rarely excited. For this reason it was all the more remarkable that such an exclamation as the one recorded should have escaped him. His duties included such an endless amount of boredom that the perusal of a manuscript which could have had such words applied to it would have been cause for immense gratulation to him, had it been its merit which had called forth such an expression. As a matter of fact, it was not this, but rather a very extraordinary coincidence. Mr. Black was possessed of a marvellous insight into the literary demands of his subscribers, and it was this insight which had swelled his list to its present size; and he knew perfectly well that the manuscript now in his hands would have to be refused, as he knew also that the one which he had laid down just before it must share the same fate. And yet to himself, personally, both of these manuscripts had been of deep and peculiar interest. The first was written in a woman’s hand, and was signed “Ethel Ross,” and, in the note that had accompanied it, Miss Ethel Ross had given her address in a certain small and obscure town. This note, as well as the manuscript itself, had a certain _naïveté_ about it which gave Mr. Black some insight into the writer. The freedom with which the note was written was of a piece with the freedom with which the manuscript was written, and Mr. Black felt pretty sure that both of them were under the protection of a _nom de guerre_. The young lady calling herself Miss Ethel Ross had taken him into her confidence in the amusing way in which a contributor so often confides in an unknown editor. Mr. Black, however, was a very human-hearted editor, and he never objected to these confidences, and even did what he could to give a friendly word of response to the writers, independent of his judgment of the manuscript. In this instance the writer had acknowledged the fact that this was her first manuscript, and had added that it would probably be her last! She had always heard, she went on to say, that everybody had one story in them, and, if that saying were true, this was her story. She had never thought of writing for publication before, she said, but for certain reasons she had suddenly concluded to make the effort, and the accompanying manuscript was the result.