A sudden flash illumined Andrew’s face.  It was like the visible awakening of hope and ambition.

“I don’t see why you can’t,” he said, eagerly.

“Maybe she can,” said Fanny.  “Give her some more of the potatoes, Andrew.”

“I’ll have plenty of time after—­evenings,” said Ellen.

“I guess lots of folks write books that sell, and sell well, that don’t have any more talent than you,” said Andrew.  “Only think how they praised your valedictory.”

“Well, it can’t do any harm to try,” said Ellen, “and you could copy it for me, couldn’t you, father?  Your writing is so fine, it would be as good as a typewriter.”

“Of course I can,” said Andrew.

When Andrew went down to the library, passing along the drenched streets, seeing the lamps through shifting veils of heavy mist, he was as full of enthusiasm over Ellen’s book as he had been over the gold-mine.  The heart of a man is always ready to admit a ray of sunshine, and it takes only a small one to dispel the shadows when love dwells therein.

Chapter XXXVII

Ellen actually went to work, with sheets of foolscap and a new bottle of ink, on a novel, which was not worth the writing; but no one could estimate the comfort and encouragement it was to Andrew.  Ellen worked an hour or two every evening on the novel, and next day Andrew copied it in a hand like copperplate—­large, with ornate flourishes.  Andrew’s handwriting had always been greatly admired, and, strangely enough, it was not in the least indicative of his character, being wholly acquired.  He had probably some ability for drawing, but this had been his only outlet.

At the head of every chapter of Ellen’s novel were birds and flowers done in colored inks, and every chapter had a tail-piece of elegant quirls and flourishes.  Fanny admired it intensely.  She was not quite so sure of Ellen’s work as she was of her husband’s.  She felt herself a judge of one, but not of the other.

“If Ellen could only write as well as you copy, it will do,” she often said to Andrew.

“What she is writing is beautiful,” said Andrew, fervently.  He was quite sure in his own mind that such a book had never been written, and his pride in his decorations was a minor one.

Ellen, although she was not versed in the ways of books, yet had enough of a sense of the fitness of things, and of the ridiculous, to know that the manuscript, with its impossible pen-and-ink birds and flowers heading and finishing every chapter, was grotesque in the extreme.  She felt divided between a desire to laugh and a desire to cry whenever she looked at it.  About her own work she felt more than doubtful; still, she was somewhat hopeful, since her taste and judgment, as well as her style, were alike crude.  She told Abby and Maria what she was doing, under promise of strict secrecy, and after a while read them a few chapters.