"Well, 'Floy,' I am really glad that you have been so fortunate. Of course I wish you to make as much as you can, and should be glad, did my circ.u.mstances admit, to give you a salary equal to what you can command elsewhere; but as I cannot give you more than I have been paying, I am glad somebody else will. Still, I see no reason why you should stop writing for 'The Standard.' Your articles will just be as valuable to me, as though you had made no new engagement."

"I am sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Lescom," replied Ruth, "but I cannot meet your wishes in this respect, as the contract I have signed will not permit me to write for any paper but 'The Household Messenger.'"

At this announcement Mr. Lescom's veil of good nature was rent in twain.

"'The Household Messenger!' Ah! it's John Walter, then, who has found you out? I don't wish to boast, but I must say, that I think you have made but a poor exchange. The whole thing is very unfortunate for you.

I was just making arrangements to club with two other editors, and to offer you a handsome yearly salary for writing exclusively for our three papers; but of course that arrangement is all knocked in the head now.

It seems to me that you might have made an exception in favor of 'The Standard.' I have no doubt that Mr. Walter would have consented to let you write for it, as it was the first paper for which you ever wrote.

He would probably do so now if you would ask him. He is an editor, and would understand the matter at once. He would see that I had more than ordinary claims upon you. What do you say to writing him on the subject?"

"I have no objection to doing so," replied Ruth, "if you think it will avail anything, though if I succeed in getting Mr. Walter's permission to write for _you_, I suppose Mr. Tibbetts, of The Pilgrim, will wish me to do the same for him, when he returns. I called at the Pilgrim office this morning, and his partner, Mr. Elder, said that he was out of town, and would not be home for several days, and that he would be greatly incensed when he heard I was going to leave, as I was getting very popular with his subscribers. Mr. Elder was very sorry himself, but he treated me courteously. By the way, Mr. Lescom, I think you had better write to Mr. Walter, as well as myself; you understand such matters, and can probably write more to the point than I can."

"Very well," said Mr. Lescom, "I will write to him at once, and you had better write now by the same mail, and have the letters both enclosed in one envelope."

Ruth took a seat at the editorial table, and wrote to Mr. Walter.

The letters were sent at once to the Post-office, so as to catch the afternoon mail, and Ruth took her leave, promising to call on the morning of the second day after, to see Mr. Walter's reply, which, judging by his usual promptness, would arrive by that time.

CHAPTER LXXI.

"Ah! another letter from 'Floy,'" said Mr. Walter, as he seated himself in his office; "now I shall hear how Lescom and Tibbetts & Co. feel about losing her. 'Floy' had probably told them by the time she wrote, and they have probably told her that she owes her reputation to them, called her ungrateful, and all that sort of thing; let us see what she says."

After reading 'Floy's' letter, Mr. Walter laid it down and began muttering out his thoughts after his usual fashion. "Just as I expected; Lescom has worked on 'Floy's' kind heart till she really feels a sort of necessity not to leave him so abruptly, and requests me as a personal favor to grant his request, at least for a time; no, no, 'Floy'--not unless he will pay you five times as much as he pays you now, and allow you, besides, to write much, or little, as you please; but where is Lescom's communication? Ruth says he wrote by the same mail--ah, here it is:

"MR. WALTER:

"SIR,--Mrs. Hall, 'Floy,' informs me that you have engaged her to write exclusively for the Household Messenger, and that you will not consent to her writing for any other publication. Perhaps you are not aware that _I_ was the first to introduce 'Floy' to the public, and that I have made her reputation what it is. This being the case, you will not think it strange that I feel as if I had some claim on her, so long as I pay her as much as she can get elsewhere. I need not say to you that The Standard is in a very flourishing condition; its circulation having nearly doubled during the past year, and that my resources are such as to enable me to outbid all compet.i.tors for 'Floy's' services, if I choose to take such a course; but I trust you will at once perceive that the Standard should be made an exception to your contract, and permit 'Floy' still to write for it.

"Respectfully yours, F. LESCOM."

"Well, upon my word," exclaimed Mr. Walter, when he had finished Mr.

Lescom's letter; "if this is not the coolest piece of egotism and impudence that I ever saw; but it is no use wasting vitality about it.

I will just answer the letter, and let things take their course; I have the weather-gage of him now, and I'll keep it; he shall have my reply to digest the first thing in the morning; I'll write to 'Floy' first, though."

On the designated Thursday, Ruth, according to her promise, called at the Standard office; something had occurred to detain Mr. Lescom, so she sat down and opened Mr. Walter's letter, which lay on the table waiting for her, and read as follows:

"DEAR RUTH:

"I have just finished reading yours and Lescom's letters. Yours has touched me deeply. It was just like you, but you know little of the selfishness and humb.u.g.g.e.ry of some newspaper publishers; you seem really to think that you ought to write for Mr. Lescom, if he so much desires it. This is very good of you, and very amiable, but (forgive my want of gallantry) very foolish. You can now understand, if you did not before, why I desired you to sign the contract by return mail. I was afraid if you went to Mr. Lescom, or Mr. Tibbetts of the Pilgrim, _before signing it_, that they would impose upon your good womanly heart, and thereby gain an unfair advantage over you. I wished to surprise you into signing the contract, that I might have a fair and righteous advantage over them. And now, 'Floy,' please to leave the whole matter to me.

I shall not consent to your writing for any paper, unless the proprietors will give you the full value of your articles--what they are really worth to them. If things turn out as I confidently expect they will, from your present popularity, you will soon be in a state of comparative independence. On the next page you will find a copy of my answer to Mr. Lescom's letter. Please keep me informed of the happenings at your end of the route.

"Yours most truly, JOHN WALTER."

Ruth then read Mr. Walter's letter to Mr. Lescom, as follows:

"F. LESCOM, Esq.

"SIR,--Your letter in regard to 'Floy,' &c., is at hand. You say, that perhaps I am not aware that _you_ were the first to introduce 'Floy' to the public, and that _you_ have made her reputation. It is fortunate for _you_ that she made The Standard the channel of her first communications to the public. I know this very well, but I am not aware, nor do I believe, that _you_ have made her reputation; neither do I think that you believe this yourself. The truth is simply this; 'Floy' is a genius; her writings, wherever published, would have attracted attention, and stamped the writer as a person of extraordinary talent; hence her fame and success, the fruits of which _you_ have princ.i.p.ally reaped. As to 'Floy's'

being under any obligations to you, I repudiate the idea entirely; the 'obligation' is all on the other side. _She_ has made 'The Standard,' instead of you making _her_ reputation. Her genius has borne its name to England, Scotland, Ireland,--wherever the English language is spoken,--and raised it from an obscure provincial paper to a widely-known journal. You say that you are wealthy, and can pay as much as anybody for 'Floy's' services; I wonder this has never occurred to you before, especially as she has informed you frequently how necessitous were her circ.u.mstances. You also inform me that the circulation of The Standard has nearly doubled the past year. This I can readily believe, since it is something more than a year since 'Floy' commenced writing for it. In reply to your declaration, 'that in case you are driven to compete for 'Floy's'

services, you can outbid all compet.i.tors,' I have only to say that my contract with her is for one year; on its expiration, 'Floy'

will be at liberty to decide for herself; you will then have an opportunity to compete for her pen, and enjoy the privilege of exhibiting your enterprise and liberality.

"Your ob't servant, JOHN WALTER."

Ruth waited some time after reading these letters, for Mr. Lescom to come in; but, finding he was still unexpectedly detained, she took a handful of letters, which the clerk had just received by mail for her, and bent her steps homeward.

CHAPTER LXXII.

The first letter Ruth opened on her return, was a request from a Professor of some College for her autograph for himself and some friends; the second, an offer of marriage from a Southerner, who confessed to one hundred negroes, "but hoped that the strength and ardor of the attachment with which the perusal of her articles had inspired him, would be deemed sufficient atonement for this in her Northern eyes.

The frozen North," he said, "had no claim on such a nature as hers; the sunny South, the land of magnolias and orange blossoms, the land of love, _should_ be her chosen home. Would she not smile on him? She should have a box at the opera, a carriage, and servants in livery, and the whole heart and soul of Victor Le Pont."

The next was more interesting. It was an offer to "Floy" from a publishing house, to collect her newspaper articles into a volume. They offered to give her so much on a copy, or $800 for the copyright. An answer was requested immediately. In the same mail came another letter of the same kind from a distant State, also offering to publish a volume of her articles.

"Well, well," soliloquized Ruth, "business is acc.u.mulating. I don't see but I shall have to make a book in spite of myself; and yet those articles were written under such disadvantages, would it be _wise_ in me to publish so soon? But Katy? and $800 copyright money?" Ruth glanced round her miserable, dark room, and at the little stereotyped bowl of bread and milk that stood waiting on the table for her supper and Nettie's; $800 _copyright money_! it _was_ a temptation; but supposing her book should prove a hit? and bring double, treble, fourfold that sum, to go into her publisher's pockets instead of hers? how provoking!

Ruth straightened up, and putting on a very resolute air, said, "No, gentlemen, I will _not_ sell you my copyright; these autograph letters, and all the other letters of friendship, love, and business, I am constantly receiving from strangers, are so many proofs that I have won the public ear. No, I will not sell my copyright; I will rather deny myself a while longer, and accept the per-centage;" and so she sat down and wrote her publishers; but then caution whispered, what if her book should _not_ sell? "Oh, pshaw," said Ruth, "it _shall_!" and she brought her little fist down on the table till the old stone inkstand seemed to rattle out "_it shall!_"

"Ah, here is another letter, which I have overlooked," said Ruth.

"TO THE DISTINGUISHED AND POPULAR WRITER, 'FLOY':

"MADAM,--I trust you will excuse the liberty I take in writing you, when you get through with my letter. I am thus confident of your leniency, because it seems to me that my case is not only a plain, but an interesting one. To come to the point, without any circ.u.mlocutory delay, I am a young man with aspirations far above my station in life. This declaration is perfectly true in some senses, but not in every sense. My parents and my ancestors are and were highly respectable people. My name, as you will see when you come to my signature, is Reginald Danby. The Danby family, Madam, was founded by Sir Reginald Danby, who was knighted for certain gallant exploits on the field of Hastings, in the year 1066, by William the Conqueror. Sir Reginald afterward married a Saxon dame, named Edith, the daughter of a powerful land-owner; hence the Danby family. All this is of very little consequence, and I only mention it in a sort of incidental way, to show you that my declaration in regard to the respectability of my family is true, and fortified by unimpeachable historical evidence; and I will here remark, that you will always find any a.s.sertion of mine as well sustained, by copious and irrefragable proof.

"The respectability of our family being thus settled, I come back to an explanation of what I mean by my 'having aspirations above my station in life.' It is this: I am poor. My family, though once wealthy, is now impoverished. The way this state of things came about, was substantially as follows: My grandfather, who was a strong-minded, thrifty gentleman, married into a poetical family.

His wife was the most poetical member of said family; much of her poetry is still extant; it never was published, because in those days publishers were not as enterprising as they are now. We value these ma.n.u.scripts very highly; still I should be willing to send you some of them for perusal, in case you will return them and pay the postage both ways, my limited means not permitting me to share that pleasure with you. As I have intimated, my grandmother reveled in poetry. She doated on Shakspeare, and about three months before my father's birth, she went to a theatre to witness the performance of 'The Midsummer Night's Dream.' She was enchanted! and, with characteristic decision, resolved to commit the entire play to memory. This resolution she executed with characteristic pertinacity, notwithstanding frequent and annoying interruptions, from various causes entirely beyond her control. She finished committing this immortal poem to memory, the very night my father was born. Time rolled on; my father, as he grew up, exhibited great flightiness of character, and instability of purpose, the result, undoubtedly, of his mother's committing 'The Midsummer Night's Dream' to memory under the circ.u.mstances which I have detailed. My father, owing to this unfortunate development of character, proved inadequate to the management of his estate, or, indeed, of any business whatever, and hence our present pecuniary embarra.s.sments.

Before quitting this painful branch of my subject, it will doubtless gratify you to have me state, that, inasmuch as my father married a woman of phlegmatic temperament, and entirely unpoetical mind, the balance of character has been happily restored to our family, so there is no fear for me. I am thus particular in my statements, because I have a high regard for truth, and for veracity, for accuracy in the _minutest_ things; a phase of character which may be accounted for from the fact, that I have just gone through a severe and protracted course of mathematics.

These preliminaries being thus fairly before you, I now come to the immediate topic of my letter, viz.: I wish to go through College; I have not the means. I wish you to help me. You are probably rich; I hope you are with all my heart. You must be able to command a high salary, and a great deal of influence. I don't ask you to lend me the money out of hand. What I propose is this: I will furnish you the subject for a splendid and thrilling story, founded on facts in the history of our family; the Danby family. In this book, my grandmother's poetry would probably read to advantage; if so, it would be a great saving, as her writings are voluminous. Your book would be sure to have a large sale, and the profits would pay my expenses at College, and perhaps leave a large surplus. This surplus should be yours, and I would also agree to pay back the sum used by me from my first earnings after graduation. I have thought over this matter a great deal, and the foregoing strikes me as the only way in which this thing can be done. If you can devise a better plan, I will of course gladly adopt it. I am not at all opinionated, but am always glad to listen to anything reasonable.

Please let me hear from you as soon as possible, and believe me truly your friend and admirer,

"REGINALD DANBY."

CHAPTER LXXIII.

Mr. Tibbetts, the editor of "The Pilgrim," having returned from the country, Ruth went to the Pilgrim office to get copies of several of her articles, which she had taken no pains to keep, never dreaming of republishing them in book form.

Mr. Tibbetts was sitting at his editorial desk, looking over a pile of ma.n.u.script. Ruth made known her errand, and also the fact of her being about to publish her book. He handed her a chair, and drawing another in front of her, said very stiffly, "My partner, Mr. Elder, Mrs. Hall, has astonished me by the information that you have very suddenly decided to withdraw from us, who first patronized you, and to write for the 'Household Messenger.'"

"Yes," replied Ruth, "I considered it my duty to avail myself of that increase of salary. My circ.u.mstances have been exceedingly straitened. I have two little ones dependent on my exertions, and _their_ future, as well as my own, to look to. You have often told me that you already paid me all you could afford, so it was useless to ask you for more; beside, the contract I have accepted, obliged me to decline or accept it by return of mail, without communicating its contents."

"Ah! I see--I see," said Mr. Tibbetts, growing very red in the face, and pushing back his chair; "it is always the way young writers treat those who have made their reputation."