"Hyacinth! I say, Hyacinth!" said the pertinacious Lewis, "I believe, after all, you are humbugging me. How _can_ she be your sister? Here's a paragraph in ---- Sentinel, saying--" and Lewis drew the paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and put on his glasses with distressing deliberation: "'We understand that "Floy," the new literary star, was in very destitute circumstances when she first solicited the patronage of the public; often wandering from one editorial office to another in search of employment, while wanting the commonest necessaries of life.' There, now, how can that be if she is 'your sister'? and you an editor, too, always patronizing some new contributor with a flourish of trumpets? Pooh, man! you are hoaxing;" and Lewis jogged him again by the elbow. "Beg your pardon, my dear boy," said Hyacinth, blandly, "but 'pon my honor, I haven't heard a word you were saying, I was so intent upon making out that craft down the river. I'm a little afraid of that fog coming up, Lewis; suppose we join Mrs. Ellet in the drawing-room." "Odd--very odd," soliloquized Lewis. "I'll try him again.-- "Did you read the panegyric on 'Floy' in 'The Inquisitor' of this morning?" said Lewis. "That paper, you know, is decidedly the highest literary authority in the country. It pronounces 'Floy's' book to be an 'unquestionable work of genius.'" "Yes," replied Hyacinth, "I saw it. It is a great thing, Lewis, for a young writer to be _literarily connected_;" and Hyacinth pulled up his shirt-collar. "But I understood you just now that nobody knew she _was_ your sister, when she first published the pieces that are now collected in that book," said Lewis, with his characteristic pertinacity. "There's that craft again," said Hyacinth; "can't you make her out, Lewis?" "No--by Jove," replied Lewis, sarcastically; "I can't make anything out. I never was so be-fogged in my life;" and he bent a penetrating glance on the masked face before him. "It is past my finding out, at least just now; but I've a Yankee tongue in my head, so I don't despair, with time and perseverance;" and Lewis followed Hyacinth into the house.