After this, I spent a year abroad, improving my mind--and I think, on the whole, it will be best to draw a veil over that portion of my literary history, for I went out to dinner on every possible occasion, and had a good time generally. Stay--did I not say my literary history? Well, that year had a good deal to do with my literary history, for I wrote stories most of the time, during a large part of my working hours and during the whole of my spare time, when I did not happen to be going out to dinner. And when I came home, I worked on just the same until, towards the end of '75, I drew blood for the first time. Oh, the joy of that first bit of money--my first earnings! And it was but a bit, a mere scrap. To be explicit, it amounted to ten shillings. I went and bought a watch on the strength of it--not a very costly affair; a matter of two pounds ten and an old silver turnip that I had by me. It was wonderful how that one half-sovereign opened up my ideas. I looked into the future as far as eye could see, and I saw myself earning an income--for at that time of day I had acquired no artistic feelings at all, and I genuinely wanted to make name and fame and money--I saw myself a young woman who could make a couple of hundred pounds from one novel, and I gloried in the prospect. [Illustration: MR. ARTHUR STANNARD (_From a photograph by Frances Browne, 135 Regent Street, W._)] I disposed of a good many stories in the same quarter at starvation prices, ranging from the original ten shillings to thirty-five. Then, after a patient year of this not very luxurious work, I made a step forward and got a story accepted by the dear old _Family Herald_. Oh, yes, this is really all relevant to my first book; very much so, indeed, for it was through Mr. William Stevens, one of the proprietors of the _Family Herald_, that I learned to know the meaning of the word 'caution'--a word absolutely indispensable to any young author's vocabulary. At this time I wrote a great deal for the _Family Herald_, and also for various magazines, including _London Society_. In the latter, my first 'Winter' work appeared--a story called 'A Regimental Martyr.' I was very oddly placed at this point of my career, for I liked most doing the 'Winter' work, but the ordinary young-lady-like fiction paid me so much the best, that I could not afford to give it up. I was, like all young magazine writers, passionately desirous of appearing in book form. I knew not a single soul in the way connected with literary matters, had absolutely no help or interest of any kind to aid me over the rough places, or even of whom to ask advice in times of doubt and difficulty. Mr. William Stevens was the only editor that I knew to whom I could go and say, 'Is this right?' or 'Is that wrong?' And I think it may be interesting to say here that I have never asked for, or indeed used, a letter of introduction in my life--that is, in connection with any literary business.