found the woman now.  Miss Vanstone possesses youth and beauty as well as talent.  Train her in the art of dramatic disguise; provide her with appropriate dresses for different characters; develop her accomplishments in singing and playing; give her plenty of smart talk addressed to the audience; advertise her as a Young Lady at Home; astonish the public by a dramatic entertainment which depends from first to last on that young lady’s own sole exertions; commit the entire management of the t hing to my care—­and what follows as a necessary con sequence?  Fame for my fair relative, and a fortune for myself.

I put these considerations, as frankly as usual, to Miss Vanstone; offering to write the Entertainment, to manage all the business, and to share the profits.  I did not forget to strengthen my case by informing her of the jealousies she would encounter, and the obstacles she would meet, if she went on the stage.  And I wound up by a neat reference to the private inquiries which she is interested in making, and to the personal independence which she is desirous of securing before she acts on her information.  “If you go on the stage,” I said, “your services will be bought by a manager, and he may insist on his claims just at the time when you want to get free from him.  If, on the contrary, you adopt my views, you will be your own mistress and your own manager, and you can settle your course just as you like.”  This last consideration appeared to strike her.  She took a day to consider it; and, when the day was over, gave her consent.

I had the whole transaction down in black and white immediately.  Our arrangement is eminently satisfactory, except in one particular.  She shows a morbid distrust of writing her name at the bottom of any document which I present to her, and roundly declares she will sign nothing.  As long as it is her interest to provide herself with pecuniary resources for the future, she verbally engages to go on.  When it ceases to be her interest, she plainly threatens to leave off at a week’s notice.  A difficult girl to deal with; she has found out her own value to me already.  One comfort is, I have the cooking of the accounts; and my fair relative shall not fill her pockets too suddenly if I can help it.

My exertions in training Miss Vanstone for the coming experiment have been varied by the writing of two anonymous letters in that young lady’s interests.  Finding her too fidgety about arranging matters with her friends to pay proper attention to my instructions, I wrote anonymously to the lawyer who is conducting the inquiry after her, recommending him, in a friendly way, to give it up.  The letter was inclosed to a friend of mine in London, with instructions to post it at Charing Cross.  A week later I sent a second letter, through the same channel, requesting the lawyer to inform me, in writing, whether he and his clients had or had not decided on taking my advice.  I directed him, with jocose reference to the collision of interests between us, to address his letter:  “Tit for Tat, Post-office, West Strand.”