Liston, false to the implied terms of her invitation, deserted me
in favor of Sir Gilbert, and left me to the mercies of a frivolous
girl. Pamela appeared to be as little aggrieved as I was. I imagined
that she supposed that Chillington would ask her to marry him some day,
before very long, and I was sure she would accept him; but it was quite
plain that, if Miss Liston persisted in making Pamela her heroine, she
would have to supply from her own resources a large supplement of
passion. Pamela was far too deficient in the commodity to be made
anything of without such re-enforcement, even by an art more adept at
making much out of nothing than Miss Liston's straightforward method
could claim to be.

A week passed, and then, one Friday morning, a new light burst on me.
Miss Liston came into the garden at eleven o'clock and sat down by me
on the lawn. Chillington and Pamela had gone riding with the squire,
Dora was visiting the poor. We were alone. The appearance of Miss
Liston at this hour (usually sacred to the use of the pen), no less
than her puzzled look, told me that an obstruction had occurred in the
novel. Presently she let me know what it was.

"I'm thinking of altering the scheme of my story, Mr. Wynne," said she.
"Have you ever noticed how sometimes a man thinks he's in love when he
isn't really?"

"Such a case sometimes occurs," I acknowledged.

"Yes, and he doesn't find out his mistake----"

"Till they're married?"

"Sometimes, yes," she said, rather as though she were making an
unwilling admission. "But sometimes he sees it before--when he meets
somebody else."

"Very true," said I, with a grave nod.

"The false can't stand against the real," pursued Miss Liston; and then
she fell into meditative silence. I stole a glance at her face; she
was smiling. Was it in the pleasure of literary creation--an artistic
ecstasy? I should have liked to answer yes, but I doubted it very
much. Without pretending to Miss Liston's powers, I have the little
subtlety that is needful to show me that more than one kind of smile
may be seen on the human face, and that there is one very different
from others; and, finally, that that one is not evoked, as a rule,
merely by the evolution of the troublesome encumbrance in pretty
writing vulgarly called a "plot."

"If," pursued Miss Liston, "someone comes who can appreciate him and
draw out what is best in him----"

"That's all very well," said I, "but what of