"I am at your ladyship's service," replied Walter.

"Then come--let me see!--the day after to-morrow--about five o'clock.
17, Goodrich Square."

Walter could not but be flattered that Lady Tremaine was so evidently
pleased with him. She called his profession an aristocracy too!
therefore she was not patronizing him, but receiving him on the same
social level! We can not blame him for the inexperience which allowed
him to hold his head a little higher as he walked home.

There was little danger of his forgetting the appointment. Lady Tremaine
received him in what she called her growlery, with cordiality. By and by
she led the way toward literature, and after they had talked of several
new books--

"We are not in this house altogether strange," she said, "to your
profession. My daughter Lufa is an authoress in her way. You, of course,
never heard of her, but it is twelve months since her volume of verse
came out."

Surely Walter had, somewhere about that time, when helping his friend
Sullivan, seen a small ornate volume of verses, with a strange name like
that on the title-page! Whether he had written a notice of it he could
not remember.

"It was exceedingly well received--for a first, of course! Lufa hardly
thought so herself, but I told her what could she expect, altogether
unknown as she was. Tell me honestly, Mr. Colman, is there not quite as
much jealousy in your profession as in any other?"