And besides this diffidence, she did not wish to _appear_ to solicit
from him a good review. She might cast herself on his mercy, but it
should not be confessedly. She had pride though not conscience in the
matter. The mother was capable of begging, not the daughter. She might
use fascination, but never entreaty; that would be to degrade herself!

Walter had, of course, taken a second look at her volume. It did not
reveal that he had said of it what was not true; but he did see that,
had he been anxious to praise, he might have found passages to commend,
or in which, at least, he could have pointed out merit. But no allusion
was made to the book, on the one hand because Lady Lufa was aware he had
written the review, and on the other because Walter did not wish to give
his opinion of it. He placed it in the category of first works; and,
knowing how poor those of afterward distinguished writers may be, it did
not annoy him that one who could talk so well should have written such
rubbish.

Lady Lufa had indeed a craze for composition, and the indulgence of it
was encouraged by her facility. There was no reason in heaven, earth, or
the other place, why what she wrote should see the light, for it had
little to do with light of any sort. "Autumn Leaves" had had no such
reception as her mother would have Walter believe. Lady Tremaine was one
of those good mothers who, like "good churchmen," will wrong any other
to get for their own. She had paid her court to Walter that she might
gain a reviewer who would yield her daughter what she called justice:
for justice' sake she could curry favor! A half-merry, half-retaliative
humor in Lufa, may have wrought for revenge by making Walter fall in
love with her; at all events it was a consolation to her wounded vanity
when she saw him, in love with her; but it was chiefly in the hope of a
"good" review of her next book that she cultivated his acquaintance, and