the smiles that make wrinkles and not dimples. "Somebody always sends
her everything that will make her wretched." Who can those creatures be
who cut out the offensive paragraph and send it anonymously to us, who
mail the newspaper which has the article we had much better not have
seen, who take care that we shall know everything which can, by any
possibility, help to make us discontented with ourselves and a little
less light-hearted than we were before we had been fools enough to
open their incendiary packages? I don't like to say it to myself, but I
cannot help suspecting, in this instance, the doubtful-looking personage
who sits on my left, beyond the Scarabee. I have some reason to think
that he has made advances to the Young Girl which were not favorably
received, to state the case in moderate terms, and it may be that he is
taking his revenge in cutting up the poor girl's story. I know this very
well, that some personal pique or favoritism is at the bottom of half
the praise and dispraise which pretend to be so very ingenuous and
discriminating. (Of course I have been thinking all this time and
telling you what I thought.)

--What you want is encouragement, my dear, said I,--I know that as well,
as you. I don't think the fellows that write such criticisms as you
tell me of want to correct your faults. I don't mean to say that you can
learn nothing from them, because they are not all fools by any means,
and they will often pick out your weak points with a malignant sagacity,
as a pettifogging lawyer will frequently find a real flaw in trying to
get at everything he can quibble about. But is there nobody who will
praise you generously when you do well,--nobody that will lend you a
hand now while you want it,--or must they all wait until you have made
yourself a name among strangers, and then all at once find out that you
have something in you? Oh,--said the girl, and the bright film gathered
too fast for her young eyes to hold much longer,--I ought not to be
ungrateful! I have found the kindest friend in the world. Have you ever
heard the Lady--the one that I sit next to at the table--say anything
about me?

I have not really made her acquaintance, I said. She seems to me a
little distant in her manners and I have respected her pretty evident
liking for keeping mostly to herself.

--Oh, but when you once do know her! I don't believe I could write
stories all the time as I do, if she didn't ask me up to her chamb