"Pretty well," the General answered for me. "She's an uncanny child, and will read in the most uncomfortable positions." "Till Mary O'Connor goes in incessant dread of my falling down like a precious china figure, and getting broken," said I, feeling rather embarrassed at being the subject of conversation. "Hilda has a prescriptive right to the library, Lance," said the General. "I sha'n't dispute it," said Captain MacNeill. "Is everybody else shut out altogether?" "When she wills it. She is a successful writer, you know, and when she comes to a crux in the story she, having nerves, can't bear the presence of anyone but Paudeen, who is sympathetic, she says. "Are you really an author, Miss Hilda?" said Captain MacNeill, with real or simulated astonishment. "She is, my boy, and a successful one at that," answered the General. "I shall be horribly afraid of you, Miss Hilda. But what precocity! At what age do people begin to write novels nowadays?" Captain MacNeill seemed determined not to take me seriously. I didn't altogether like his lack of seriousness about my authorship. "I was twenty-one last May," said I. "It is not so very young." "Not really twenty-one, Miss Hilda?" said the Captain. "Then why do you go on looking fifteen?" "Because I'm small, I suppose," I said. "But you must have known I was grown-up, for I was a big girl when you saw me first five years ago." "So you were," he said. "I remember now that when I lifted you in the donkey-cart I thought you were like a very considerable piece of thistle-down that a fairly robust south wind might blow away." "Please don't talk about that silly time," said I. "But the General is telling stories about my nerves. If I have any I vent them on Paudeen and the four walls of my little room at home. I have never written a line yet in Rose Hill library." "Time you should begin, Hilda," said the General. "If you'll set up your study here I'll promise you this fellow and I won't disturb you. Life seems to be so full of things to be done, now he has come home, that I don't know which thing to begin at to-morrow morning." "Oh, General!" said I, "I must be at home sometimes. Why, I have been spending nearly half my life at Rose Hill this winter." "And why not?" said the General. "A couple of lonely buffers like us want you more than Brandon can. Do you know that she catalogued and arranged all our library, Lance?" "Well," said I, half-laughing and half-confused, "I should think you two could find something to talk about this night of nights other than me." "Why, my dear," said the General mildly, "I like to tell Lance all you have been to me--a bird of good omen in my lonely life. I had had no joy for so long before you came--since this fellow left me, in short,--and then you came into my life, like a--like a dear little daughter. She has been like that to me, Lance."