es and lived a sort of shabby, idyllic, happy life,
somewhat on the plan of 'God for us all and the devil take the
hindermost.' Need I say that it was told in the first person and in the
present tense, and that the heroine was anything but good-looking?

I was very young then, and thought a great deal of my pretty bits of
writing and those seductive scraps of moralising, against which Mr.
Stevens was always warning me. Well, this very long, not to say
spun-out, account of this very large family of boys and girls, did not
happen to please the 'readers' for the _Family Herald_--then my
stay-by--so I thought I would have a try round the various publishers
and see if I could not get it brought out in three volumes. Of course, I
tried all the best people first, and very often, when I receive from
struggling young authors (who know a great deal more about my past
history than I do myself, and who frequently write to ask me the best
and easiest way to get on at novel-writing, without either hard work, or
waiting, or disappointment, because, if you please, my own beginnings
were so singularly successful and delightful) the information that I
have never known of any of their troubles, it seems to me that my past
and my present cannot be the past and present of the same woman. Yet
they are. I went through it all; the same sickening disappointments, the
same hopes and fears; I trod the self-same path that every beginner must
assuredly tread, as we must all in time tread that other path to the
grave. I went through it all, and with that exceedingly long and
detailed account of that large and shabby family, I trod the thorny path
of publishing almost to the bitter end--ay, even to the goal where we
find the full-blown swindler waiting for us, with bland looks and
honeyed words of sweetest flattery. Dear, dear! many who read this will
know the process. It seldom varies. First, I sent my carefully written
MS., whose very handwriting betrayed my youth, to a certain firm which
had offices off the Strand, to be considered for publication. The firm
very kindly did consider it, and their consideration was such that they
made me an offer of publication--_on certain terms_.

Their polite note informed me that their readers had read the work and
thought very highly of it, that they were inclined--just by the way of
completing their list for the approaching September, the best month in
the year for bringing out novels--to bring it out, althoug