They were all silent; and I felt as if I had behaved ungraciously. Then first I felt as if I might _have_ to do it, after all. But I couldn't see my way in the least. "Now, what is there," I asked, "in all my life that is worth setting down,--I mean, as I should be able to set it down?" "What do you ladies talk about now in your morning calls?" suggested Mr. Blackstone, with a humorous glance from his deep black eyes. "Nothing worth writing about, as I am sure _you_ will readily believe, Mr. Blackstone," I answered. "How comes it to be interesting, then?" "But it isn't. They--we--only talk about the weather and our children and servants, and that sort of thing." "_Well!_" said Mr. S., "and I wish I could get any thing sensible about the weather and children and servants, and that sort of thing, for my magazine. I have a weakness in the direction of the sensible." "But there never is any thing sensible said about any of them,--not that I know of." "Now, Wynnie, I am sure you are wrong," said my father. "There is your friend, Mrs. Cromwell: I am certain she, sometimes at least, must say what is worth hearing about such matters." "Well, but she's an exception. Besides, she hasn't any children." "Then," said my husband, "there's Lady Bernard"-- "Ah! but she was like no one else. Besides, she is almost a public character, and any thing said about her would betray my original." "It would be no matter. She is beyond caring for that now; and not one of her friends could object to any thing you who loved her so much would say about her." The mention of this lady seemed to put some strength into me. I felt as if I did know something worth telling, and I was silent in my turn. "Certainly," Mr. S. resumed, "whatever is worth talking about is worth writing about,--though not perhaps in the way it is talked about. Besides, Mrs. Percivale, my clients want to know more about your sisters, and little Theodora, or Dorothea, or--what was her name in the book?" The end of it was, that I agreed to try to the extent of a dozen pages or so. CHAPTER II. I TRY. I hope no one will think I try to write like my father; for that would be to go against what he always made a great point of,--that nobody whatever should imitate any other person whatever, but in modesty and humility allow the seed that God had sown in her to grow. He said all imitation tended to dwarf and distort the plant, if it even allowed the seed to germinate at all. So, if I do write like him, it will be because I cannot help it.