“Not one page is my own,” she replied, peering at me through her gold-rimmed spectacles. “Bundles of manuscripts like these have haunted my later life. I receive large packets from men and women I have never seen and know nothing whatever about. One asks for my advice; another if I can find a publisher; a third enquires if the material is worth spinning out into a three-volume novel; a fourth lives abroad and places the MS. in my hands to do with it exactly as I think fit. “How fearful! But what do you do with them all?” “Once I returned one unread, for the writing was so bad I could not decipher it. But only once; the rest I have always conscientiously read through and corrected page by page, if I have thought there was anything to be made of them. But to many of my unknown correspondents, I have had to reply sadly that the work had not sufficient merit for publication, and, as gently as I could, suggest their leaving literature alone and trying something else.” “You are very good to bother yourself with them.” “No, not good exactly; but I feel very strongly the duty of the old to the young, and how the established must help the striving. I am so sorry for young people, and know how a little help or advice given at the right moment may prove the making of a career; kindly words of discouragement, given also at the right time, may save many a bitter tear of disappointment in the future.” This was the “dragon” who, I do not doubt, existed in the minds of thousands of readers of Mrs. Lynn Linton’s magazine essays—essays which were full of fire; critical, analytical, clear-sighted and written unflinchingly. Who would dream after reading one of her splendidly forcible arguments, written in her trenchant style, that the real author was one of the most domesticated, home-loving women possible, full of kindness and sympathy, and keenly interested in the welfare of all around her? How little a book reveals the true author. How often the pen disguises the real person, as words disguise the inmost thoughts. Indeed, one might go far to find another such lovable old lady. It is often supposed by the outside world that jealousies and rivalries exist between authors, as is too often said to be the case in other professions. Nonsense! Here is one example to the contrary. And many another could easily be furnished. At the very time that Mrs. Lynn Linton was earning her living by writing novels, Mrs. Alexander, in private life Mrs. Hector (another dear memory), was doing the same. Rivalry there was none between these two; more than that, they actually helped each other. And in the end, when Mrs. Lynn Linton died, she left her most cherished cabinet of china and many other souvenirs to her woman writer friend, who prized them above rubies. The following is a characteristic letter from Mrs. Lynn Linton, anent an article I had written about her: “MY DEAR MRS. TWEEDIE,