Miss Lavinia protested against the sweet flattery, but all the
same she was pleased. She began to take the girl out with her to
the houses of various "great" personages--friends whom she knew
well and who made an intimate little social circle of their own--
"old-fashioned" people certainly, but happily free from the sort
of suppressed rowdyism which distinguishes the "nouveaux riches"
of the present day,--people who adhered rigidly to almost obsolete
notions of honour and dignity, who lived simply and well within
their means, who spoke reverently of things religious and believed
in the old adage--"Manners makyth the man." So by degrees,
Innocent found herself among a small choice "set" chiefly made up
of the fragments of the real "old" aristocracy, to which Miss
Leigh herself belonged,--and, with her own quick intuition and
inborn natural grace, she soon became a favourite with them all.
But no one knew the secret of her literary aspirations save Miss
Leigh, and when her book was published anonymously and the reading
world began to talk of it as something unusual and wonderful, she
was more terrified than pleased. Its success was greater than she
had ever dreamed of, and her one idea was to keep up the mystery
of its authorship as long as possible, but every day made this
more difficult. And when John Harrington wrote to her, she felt
that disclosure was imminent. She had always kept the visiting-
card he had given her when they had travelled to London together,
and she knew he belonged to the staff of a great and leading
newspaper,--he was a man not likely to be baffled in any sort of
enquiry he might choose to make. She thought about this as she sat
in her quiet little room, working at the last few chapters of her
second book which the publishers were eagerly waiting for. What a
magical change had been wrought in her life since she left Briar
Farm more than a year, aye,--nearly eighteen months ago! For one