Meade L. T. - The Time of Roses стр 14.

"Oh, you are comfortable here," said Florence, with the ghost of a sigh, for truly the room, as compared with her own, looked absolutely luxurious. There was a comfortable sofa, which Miss Franks told her afterwards she had contrived out of a number of old packing-cases, and there was a deep straw armchair lined with chintz and abundantly cushioned, and on a table pushed against the wall and on the mantelpiece were jars full of lovely flowers roses, verbena, sweetbriar, and quantities of pinks. The room was fragrant with these flowers, and Florence gave a great sigh as she smelt them.

"Oh, how sweet!" she said.

"Yes; I put this verbena on the little round table near the sofa; you are to lie on the sofa. Come: put up your feet this minute."

"But I really don't want to," said Florence, protesting, and beginning to laugh.

"But I want you to. You can do as you please in the restaurant, and you can do as you please in your own diggings, but in mine you are to do as I wish. Now then, up go your feet. I am making the most delicious cocoa by a new recipe. I bought a spirit-lamp this morning. You cannot think how clever I am over all sorts of cooking."

"But what are those things on that table?" said Florence.

"Oh, some of my medical tools. I do a tiny bit of dissecting now and then nothing very dreadful. I have nothing to-night

would go on, and make your comments at the end," said Florence then, in an almost cross tone.

"My dear, that answer of yours requires medicine. I shall certainly insist upon your taking a tonic to your room with you. I can dispense a little already, and have some directions by me. I can make up something which will do you a lot of good."

"Do go on reading," said Florence.

Edith Franks proceeded with the manuscript. Her even voice still flowed on without pause or interruption. At the end of the third or fourth page, however, she ceased to make any remarks: she turned the pages now rapidly, and about the middle of the story her voice changed its tone. It was no longer even nor smooth: it became broken as though something oppressed her, then it rose triumphant and excited. She had finished: she flung the manuscript back almost at Florence's head with a gay laugh.

"And you pretend, you pretend," she said, "that you are a starving girl a girl out of a situation! You are a sham, Miss Aylmer you are a sham."

"What do you mean?" said Florence.

"Why, this," said Edith Franks. She took up the manuscript again.

"What about it? I mean, do you do you like it?"

"Like it? It is not that exactly. I admire it, of course. Have you written much? Have you ever published anything?"

"Never a line."

"But you must have written a great deal to have achieved that style."

"No, I have written very little."

"Then you are a heaven-born genius: give me your hand."

Florence slowly and unwilling extended her hand. Miss Franks grasped it in both of hers.

"Flexible fingers," she said, "but not exactly, not precisely the hand of an artist, and yet, and yet you are an artist through and through. My dear, you are a genius."

"I do not know why you say that."

"Because you have written that story, that queer, weird, extraordinary tale. It is not the plot alone: it is the way you have told it, the way the figures group themselves together, the strength that is in them, the way you have grasped the situation; and you have made all those characters live. They move backwards and forwards; they are human beings. I am so glad Johanna won the victory, she was so brave, and it was such a cruel temptation. Oh, I shall dream of that story, and yet you say you have written very little."

"You jump to conclusions," said Florence. She spoke in a queer voice. "I never told you that I had written that story."

"But you have, my dear; I see it in your face. Oh, I congratulate you."

"Would it be possible to to publish it?" was Florence's next remark, made after a long pause.

"Publish it? I know half a dozen editors in London who would jump at it. I know a good deal about writing, as it happens. My brother is a journalist, and he has talked to me about these things. He is a very clever journalist, and at one time I had a faint sort of dream that I might follow in his steps, but my own career is better I mean for me. Publish it; of course, you shall publish it. Editors are only too thankful to get the real stuff, but, poor souls! they seldom do get it. You will be paid well for this. Of course, you will make up your mind to be an author, a writer of short stories, a second Bret Harte. Oh, this is splendid, superb!"

Florence got up from her sofa; she felt a little giddy. Her face was very white.

"Do you do you know any publishers personally?" was her next remark.

"Not personally, but I can give you a list of half a dozen at least. I shall watch your career with intense interest, and I can advise you too. I tell you what it is on Sunday I will go and see my brother Tom, and I will tell him about you, and ask him what he would recommend. You must not give yourself away; you have a great career before you. Of course, you will lead the life of a writer, and nothing else?"