“Eminent journalist John Harrington reviews book favourably in evening paper suggesting that you are the actual author.  May we deny or confirm?”

She thought for some minutes before deciding—­and went to Miss Leigh with the telegram in her hand.

“Godmother mine!” she said, kneeling down beside her—­“Tell me, what shall I do?  Is it any use continuing to wear the veil of mystery?  Shall I take up my burden and bear it like a man?”

Miss Lavinia smiled, and drew the girl’s fair head to her bosom.

“Poor little one!” she said, tenderly—­“I know just what you feel about it!  You would rather remain quietly in your own dreamland than face the criticism of the world, or be pointed out as a ’celebrity’—­yes, I quite understand!  But I think you must, in justice to yourself and others, ’take up the burden’—­as you put it—­yes, child!  You must wear your laurels, though for you I should prefer the rose!”

Innocent shivered, as with sudden cold.

“A rose has thorns!” she said, as she got up from her kneeling attitude and moved away—­“It’s beautiful to look at—­but it soon fades!”

She sent off her reply wire to the publishers without further delay.

“Statement quite true.  You can confirm it publicly.”

And so the news was soon all over London, and for that matter all over the world.  From one end of the globe to the other the fact was made known that a girl in her twentieth year had produced a literary masterpiece, admirable both in design and execution, worthy to rank with the highest work of the most brilliant and renowned authors.  She was speedily overwhelmed by letters of admiration, and invitations from every possible quarter where “lion-hunting” is practised as a stimulant to jaded and over-wrought society, but amid all the attractions and gaieties offered to her she held fast by her sheet-anchor of safety, Miss Leigh, who redoubled her loving care and vigilance, keeping her as much as she could in the harbour of that small and exclusive “set” of well-bred and finely-educated people for whom noise and fuss and show meant all that was worst in taste and manners.  And remaining more or less in seclusion, despite the growing hubbub around her name, she finished her second book, and took it herself to the great publishing house which was rapidly coining good hard cash out of the delicate dream of her woman’s brain.  The head of the firm received her with eager and respectful cordiality.

“You kept your secret very well!” he said—­“I assure you I had no idea you could be the author of such a book!—­you are so young—­”

She smiled, a little sadly.

“One may be young in years and old in thought,” she answered—­“I passed all my childhood in reading and studying—­I had no playmates and no games—­and I was nearly always alone.  I had only old books to read—­mostly of the sixteenth century—­I suppose I formed a ‘style’ unconsciously on these.”