by these personages of my story had come to be recognized, each as standing for one and the same individual of my acquaintance.  It had been of no use to change the costume.  Even changing the sex did no good.  I had a famous old gossip in one of my tales,—­a much-babbling Widow Sertingly.  ‘Sho!’ they all said, that ’s old Deacon Spinner, the same he told about in that other story of his,—­only the deacon’s got on a petticoat and a mob-cap,—­but it’s the same old sixpence.’  So I said to myself, I must have some new characters.  I had no trouble with young characters; they are all pretty much alike,—­dark-haired or light-haired, with the outfits belonging to their complexion, respectively.  I had an old great-aunt, who was a tip-top eccentric.  I had never seen anything just like her in books.  So I said, I will have you, old lady, in one of my stories; and, sure enough, I fitted her out with a first-rate odd-sounding name, which I got from the directory, and sent her forth to the world, disguised, as I supposed, beyond the possibility of recognition.  The book sold well, and the eccentric personage was voted a novelty.  A few weeks after it was published a lawyer called upon me, as the agent of the person in the directory, whose family name I had used, as he maintained, to his and all his relatives’ great damage, wrong, loss, grief, shame, and irreparable injury, for which the sum of blank thousand dollars would be a modest compensation.  The story made the book sell, but not enough to pay blank thousand dollars.  In the mean time a cousin of mine had sniffed out the resemblance between the character in my book and our great-aunt.  We were rivals in her good graces.  ‘Cousin Pansie’ spoke to her of my book and the trouble it was bringing on me,—­she was so sorry about it!  She liked my story,—­only those personalities, you know.  ‘What personalities?’ says old granny-aunt.  ’Why, auntie, dear, they do say that he has brought in everybody we know,—­did n’t anybody tell you about—­well,—­I suppose you ought to know it,—­did n’t anybody tell you you were made fun of in that novel?’ Somebody—­no matter who—­happened to hear all this, and told me.  She said granny-aunt’s withered old face had two red spots come to it, as if she had been painting her cheeks from a pink saucer.  No, she said, not a pink saucer, but as if they were two coals of fire.  She sent out and got the book, and made her (the somebody that I was speaking of) read it to her.  When she had heard as much as she could stand,—­for ‘Cousin Pansie’ explained passages to her,—­explained, you know,—­she sent for her lawyer, and that same somebody had to be a witness to a new will she had drawn up.  It was not to my advantage.  ‘Cousin Pansie’ got the corner lot where the grocery is, and pretty much everything else.  The old woman left me a legacy.  What do you think it was?  An old set of my own books, that looked as if it had been bought out of a bankrupt circulating library.