The most eagerly expected acknowledgment was, however, a disappointment.  Philip knew Mrs. Mavick too well by this time to expect a letter from her daughter, but there might have been a line.  But Mrs. Mavick wrote herself.  Her daughter, she said, had asked her to acknowledge the receipt of his very charming story.  When he had so many friends it was very thoughtful in him to remember the acquaintances of last summer.  She hoped the book would have the success it deserved.

This polite note was felt to be a slap in the face, but the effect of it was softened a little later by a cordial and appreciative letter from Miss McDonald, telling the author what great delight and satisfaction they had had in reading it, and thanking him for a prose idyl that showed in the old-fashioned way that common life was not necessarily vulgar.

The critics seemed to Philip very slow in letting the public know of the birth of the book.  Presently, however, the little notices, all very much alike, began to drop along, longer or shorter paragraphs, commonly in undiscriminating praise of the beauty of the story, the majority of them evidently written by reviewers who sat down to a pile of volumes to be turned off, and who had not more than five or ten minutes to be lost.  Rarely, however, did any one condemn it, and that showed that it was harmless.  Mr. Brad had given it quite a lift in the Spectrum.  The notice was mainly personal—­the first work of a brilliant young man at the bar who was destined to go high in his profession, unless literature should, fortunately for the public, have stronger attractions for him.  That such a country idyl should be born amid law-books was sufficiently remarkable.  It was an open secret that the scene of the story was the birthplace of the author—­a lovely village that was brought into notice a summer ago as the chosen residence of Thomas Mavick and his family.

Eagerly looked for at first, the newspaper notices soon palled upon Philip, the uniform tone of good-natured praise, unanimous in the extravagance of unmeaning adjectives.  Now and then he welcomed one that was ill-natured and cruelly censorious.  That was a relief.  And yet there were some reviews of a different sort, half a dozen in all, and half of them from Western journals, which took the book seriously, saw its pathos, its artistic merit, its failure of construction through inexperience.  A few commended it warmly to readers who loved ideal purity and could recognize the noble in common life.  And some, whom Philip regarded as authorities, welcomed a writer who avoided sensationalism, and predicted for him an honorable career in letters, if he did not become self-conscious and remained true to his ideals.  The book clearly had not made a hit, the publishers had sold one edition and ordered half another, and no longer regarded the author as a risk.  But, better than this, the book had attracted the attention of many lovers of literature.  Philip was surprised