The first letter Ruth opened on her return, was a request from a Professor of some College for her autograph for himself and some friends; the second, an offer of marriage from a Southerner, who confessed to one hundred negroes, "but hoped that the strength and ardor of the attachment with which the perusal of her articles had inspired him, would be deemed sufficient atonement for this in her Northern eyes. The frozen North," he said, "had no claim on such a nature as hers; the sunny South, the land of magnolias and orange blossoms, the land of love, _should_ be her chosen home. Would she not smile on him? She should have a box at the opera, a carriage, and servants in livery, and the whole heart and soul of Victor Le Pont." The next was more interesting. It was an offer to "Floy" from a publishing house, to collect her newspaper articles into a volume. They offered to give her so much on a copy, or $800 for the copyright. An answer was requested immediately. In the same mail came another letter of the same kind from a distant State, also offering to publish a volume of her articles. "Well, well," soliloquized Ruth, "business is accumulating. I don't see but I shall have to make a book in spite of myself; and yet those articles were written under such disadvantages, would it be _wise_ in me to publish so soon? But Katy? and $800 copyright money?" Ruth glanced round her miserable, dark room, and at the little stereotyped bowl of bread and milk that stood waiting on the table for her supper and Nettie's; $800 _copyright money_! it _was_ a temptation; but supposing her book should prove a hit? and bring double, treble, fourfold that sum, to go into her publisher's pockets instead of hers? how provoking! Ruth straightened up, and putting on a very resolute air, said, "No, gentlemen, I will _not_ sell you my copyright; these autograph letters, and all the other letters of friendship, love, and business, I am constantly receiving from strangers, are so many proofs that I have won the public ear. No, I will not sell my copyright; I will rather deny myself a while longer, and accept the per-centage;" and so she sat down and wrote her publishers; but then caution whispered, what if her book should _not_ sell? "Oh, pshaw," said Ruth, "it _shall_!" and she brought her little fist down on the table till the old stone inkstand seemed to rattle out "_it shall!_" "Ah, here is another letter, which I have overlooked," said Ruth. "TO THE DISTINGUISHED AND POPULAR WRITER, 'FLOY':