“On the contrary, I liked it as well, if not better, than any novel you have written. It is so entirely original. My wife... I think you value her opinion--” “She liked it?” “Come home with me, and she'll tell you how it struck her.” “I will, on one condition, that you don't mention that you spoke to me about the book.” Best promised, and we had not been many minutes in the house before Mrs. Best interrupted my remarks about the weather to tell me what she thought of “Spring Days.” “The matter is important. Sooner or later I shall have to think about a collected edition. Is it to be included?” Mrs. Best, like A. E., offered to lend me her copy, but I could not bring myself to accept it, and escaped from the book till I came to live in London. Then Fate thrust it into my hands, the means employed being a woman to whom I had written for “Impressions and Opinions.” She had lost her copy; there was, however, an old book of mine which she had never heard me speak of--“Spring Days”--and which, etc., she was sending me the book. “Omens are omens,” I muttered, “and there's no use kicking against the pricks eternally;” and cutting the string of the parcel I sat down to read a novel which I had kept so resolutely out of my mind for twenty-five years, that all I remembered of its story and characters was an old gentleman who lived in a suburb, and whose daughters were a great source of trouble to him. I met the style of the narrative as I might that of an original writer whose works I was unacquainted with. There was a zest in it, and I read on and on; I must have read for nearly two hours, which is a long read for me, laying the book aside from time to time, so that I might reflect at my ease on the tenacity with which it had clung to existence. Every effort had been made to drown it; again and again it had been flung into the river, literally and metaphorically, but it had managed to swim ashore like a cat. It would seem that some books have nine hundred and ninety and nine lives, and God knows how long my meditation might have lasted if the front door bell had not rung. “Are you at home, sir, to Mr.--?” “Yes.” There is time for one word more, dear reader, and whilst my visitor lays his hat and coat on the table in the passage I will beseech you not to look forward to a sentimental story; “Spring Days” is as free from sentiment or morals as Daphnis and Chloe. G. M. I “Miss, I'll have his blood; I will, miss, I will.” “For goodness' sake, cook, go back to your kitchen; put that dreadful pair of boots under your apron.” “No, miss; I'll be revenged. He has insulted me.” “You can't be revenged now, cook; you see he has shut himself in; you had better go back to your kitchen.” The groom, who was washing the carriage, stood, mop in hand, grinning, appreciating the discomfiture of the coachman, who was paying the penalty of his joke.