"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