With these data to go upon, Mr. Black, who was a keen student of human nature, had seen the whole thing as plain as a picture before his eyes, even to the understanding of the “certain reasons.” He felt sure that the need of money had been the reason--a _motif_ for literary effort known to him all too well. There was no indication in either the letter or the manuscript of even the faintest stirring of the divine afflatus of literary creation. There was no hint of any desire for fame. It was distinctly, and he felt sure, honestly, owned, that the writer had emptied herself in this story, and would be incapable of doing anything further. Of all the incentives to writing known to him, the need of money was the only one that fitted this case. And how powerful must that need have been to have caused a woman to write her heart out, as this woman had done here. The story, if it could be called a story, was absolutely without literary form, and so unfinished in style that no magazine could have ventured to print it. And yet there breathed through it such an exquisite soul of sweetness, such a spirit of refinement, purity, innocence, aspiration and charm, that Mr. Black was tempted to ask her to re-cast the manuscript, leave out the poor attempt at plot, and let the subtle self-analysis appear in the form of entries in a journal, or letters, or something of that sort. There were two reasons against this, though--one was, that he felt that the girl would have been incapable of doing what he wanted, and would simply have made a mess of it; and the other was, that he positively shrank from exposing to public view the secrets of the heart of this young girl. For the keynote of this poor story of hers was the aspiration of a young, innocent, and ardent woman after love. What it described was the hardships of a lot keenly interpenetrated with pain, full of privation of body and soul, obscured by perplexities and difficulties on every side, and yet sweetened, illuminated, glorified, by the possibility of the attainment of the supreme good, which, to this being, at least, was to be found only in love. Here was a creature, if ever words painted truth, whose waiting heart was kept both strong and pure by the sanctification of that hope. The manuscript proved beyond a doubt, that, though she could not write, she could love!