"Then, I beg leave to say, that I never had an original thought in my life;
and that, if I were to attempt to tell my history, the result would be
as silly a narrative as ever one old woman told another by the workhouse
fire."

"And I only wish I could hear the one old woman tell her story to the
other," said my father.

"Ah! but that's because you see ever so much more in it than shows. You
always see through the words and the things to something lying behind
them," I said.

"Well, if you told the story rightly, other people would see such things
behind it too."

"Not enough of people to make it worth while for Mr. S. to print it," I
said.

"He's not going to print it except he thinks it worth his while; and you
may safely leave that to him," said my husband.

"And so I'm to write a book as big as 'The Annals;' and, after I've been
slaving at it for half a century or so, I'm to be told it won't do, and all
my labor must go for nothing? I must say the proposal is rather a cool one
to make,--to the mother of a family."

"Not at all; that's not it, I mean," said Mr. S.; "if you will write a
dozen pages or so, I shall be able to judge by those well enough,--at
least, I will take all the responsibility on myself after that."