“Miss Rennie, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for your good opinion.  Then you like my style?  Do you hear that, you ogre?  Publishers, you know, Miss Melville, are noted for living upon the bones of unfortunate authors, and never saying grace either before or after the meal.  This Goth, this Vandal, this Jacob Tonson, has had the barbarity to find fault with the last thing I put into the “Mag".”

“Well, I thought you had never done anything so good.  It was so funny; papa laughed till he shook the spectacles off his face, and then all the children laughed too.”

“Listen, thou devourer of innocents, thou fattener on my labour and groans.  My work was good, and my style better, fashionable as Miss Rennie’s flounces, and piquant as the sauce we will have from our host at supper.”

“The style has been fashionable,” said the publisher, “but it is getting overdone.  Everybody is trying the allusive style now, and wandering from the subject in hand to quote a book, or to refer to something very remotely connected with it.  Every word or sentence is made a peg to hang something else on.  Our authors are too fond of showing off reading or curious information; the style of the old essayists-----”

“Bald and tame, with very little knowledge of the finer shades of character,” interrupted Mr. Malcolm.  “I wonder why you, as a critic, can compare our brilliant modern literature to such poor performances.”

“They have their deficiencies, certainly; but there was a simplicity and directness in these old writings that we would do well to imitate.”

“I had better imitate the style of the paying article at present, and write an evangelical novel.  I had better read up in it; but the unlucky thing is that they invariably put me to sleep; so perhaps I would do better to trust to my own original genius, and begin in an independent manner.”

“Is it not a treat,” whispered Miss Rennie to Jane, “to get a peep behind the scenes in this way?  Mr. Malcolm is quite a genius.  I am sure he could write anything; but he really ought not to go to sleep over those charming books.  He is such a severe critic, I am quite afraid of him.”

“Then you write yourself?” said Jane.

“Oh! how foolish of me to let you know in such a silly way.  I write nothing to speak of.  I never thought any one would take me for an authoress.  But I do so doat on poetry, and it seems so natural to express one’s feelings in verse—­not for publication, you know—­only for my friends.  Once or twice—­but this is a great secret—­I have had pieces brought out in the ‘Ladies’ Magazine.’  If you read it, you may have seen them; they had the signature of Ella—­a pretty name, is it not?—­more uncommon than my own.”

“Is it a fair question,” said Jane, anxiously; “but did you receive anything for your verses?”

“You have such a commercial turn of mind, Miss Melville, as papa says, that you really ought to be in business.  No; I did not receive or, indeed, did I wish for any payment.  I would mix no prose with my poetry.”