The short stories were more fortunate.  I sent the first to the Family Herald, and some weeks afterwards received a letter from which dropped a cheque as I opened it.  Dear me!  I have earned a good deal of money since by my pen, but never any that gave me the intense delight of that first thirty shillings.  It was the first money I had ever earned, and the pride of the earning was added to the pride of authorship.  In my childish delight and practical religion, I went down on my knees and thanked God for sending it to me, and I saw myself earning heaps of golden guineas, and becoming quite a support of the household.  Besides, it was “my very own”, I thought, and a delightful sense of independence came over me.  I had not then realised the beauty of the English law, and the dignified position in which it placed the married woman; I did not understand that all a married woman earned by law belonged to her owner, and that she could have nothing that belonged to her of right.[1] I did not want the money:  I was only so glad to have something of my own to give, and it was rather a shock to learn that it was not really mine at all.

[Footnote 1:  This odious law has now been altered, and a married woman is a person, not a chattel.]

From time to time after that, I earned a few pounds for stories in the same journal; and the Family Herald, let me say, has one peculiarity which should render it beloved by poor authors; it pays its contributor when it accepts the paper, whether it prints it immediately or not; thus my first story was not printed for some weeks after I received the cheque, and it was the same with all others accepted by the same journal.  Encouraged by these small successes, I began writing a novel!  It took a long time to do, but was at last finished, and sent off to the Family Herald. The poor thing came back, but with a kind note, telling me that it was too political for their pages, but that if I would write one of “purely domestic interest”, and up to the same level, it would probably be accepted.  But by that time I was in the full struggle of theological doubt, and that novel of “purely domestic interest” never got itself written.

I contributed further to the literature of my country a theological pamphlet, of which I forget the exact title, but it dealt with the duty of fasting incumbent on all faithful Christians, and was very patristic in its tone.

In January, 1869, my little son was born, and as I was very ill for some months before,—­and was far too much interested in the tiny creature afterwards, to devote myself to pen and paper, my literary career was checked for a while.  The baby gave a new interest and a new pleasure to life, and as we could not afford a nurse I had plenty to do in looking after his small majesty.  My energy in reading became less feverish when it was done by the side of the baby’s cradle, and the little one’s presence almost healed the abiding pain of my mother’s loss.