ot dared and do not dare to night.
Sometimes I am sure I have a right, a precious right, a sacred right, and
then something bids me forbear, and I forbear. I am forbearing now as I
sit up here in my chamber alone, crowded in among my books and the wind
is wild upon the water. I am gloomy to-night and discouraged. My book,
the book I have lost myself in so long, has been refused the fourth time.
Had it not been for your hand upon my arm awhile ago it would be now
shrivelled and curling among the ashes on my hearth.

"Who was it that stood on London Bridge and did not throw his manuscript
over? Listen! Do you hear that grand child of yours asking who it was
that sat by his hearth and did not toss his manuscript into the fire?
Didn't somebody in the Bible toss a roll into the fire on the hearth? I
want you to come to talk to me. I want some one not wise or learned,
except learned and wise in such fashion as you are, to sit here beside
me, and look into the fire with me, and listen to the wind with me, and
talk to me or be silent with me. If my book had been accepted, and all
the world were wagging their tongues about it, I should want that unwise,
unlearned somebody. That friend of mine over the water, sitting in his
lonely bungalow tonight studying Hindoostanee wants somebody, too. Why
did you not go with him, Prudence? Shall you never go with any one; shall
you and I, so near to each other, with so much to keep us together, go
always uncomforted. But you _are_ comforted. You loved Helen, you love
Linnet and Marjorie and a host of others; you do not need me to bid you
be brave. You are a brave woman. I am not a brave man. I am not brave
to-night, with that four-times-rejected manuscript within reach of my
hand. Shall I publish it myself? I want some one to think well enough of
it to take the risk.

"Prudence, I have asked God for something, but he gives me an answer that
I cannot understand. Write to me and tell me how that is.

"Yours to-day and to-morrow."

"J. H."

* * * * *

"_New York, Dec_. 20, 18--.

"MY DEAR JOHN:

"I have time but for one word to-night, and even that cannot be at
length. Linnet and I are just in from a lecture on Miss Mitford! There
were tears running down over my heart all the time that I was listening.
You call me brave; she was brave. Think of her pillowed up in bed writing
her last book, none to be kind to her except those to whom she paid
money. Linne