public.'

'Not on the stage?'

'Certainly not on the stage. There is no novelty in a poor lady turning
actress, and novelty is what I want. Ordinary powers exhibited in a new
way effect as much as extraordinary powers exhibited in an old way.'

'Yes--so they do. And extraordinary powers, and a new way too, would be
irresistible.'

'I don't calculate upon both. I had written a prose story by request,
when it was found that I had grown utterly inane over verse. It was
written in the first person, and the style was modelled after De Foe's.
The night before sending it off, when I had already packed it up, I was
reading about the professional story-tellers of Eastern countries, who
devoted their lives to the telling of tales. I unfastened the manuscript
and retained it, convinced that I should do better by telling the story.'

'Well thought of!' exclaimed Christopher, looking into her face. 'There
is a way for everybody to live, if they can only find it out.'

'It occurred to me,' she continued, blushing slightly, 'that tales of the
weird kind were made to be told, not written. The action of a teller is
wanted to give due effect to all stories of incident; and I hope that a
time will come when, as of old, instead of an unsocial reading of fiction
at home alone, people will meet together cordially, and sit at the feet
of a professed romancer. I am going to tell my tales before a London
public. As a child, I had a considerable power in arresting the
attention of other children by recounting adventures which had never