"Well, no; it was not."
"I am not questioning you, my darling. At least, I don't want to. But you can do no good to anybody just now—believe me! You must get quite well and strong, and then perhaps you can fight for yourself or for other people. I don't dispute your title to fight, when and where and how you like; and if ever I am in trouble, the Lord send me such a champion! But get strong first. If you went out with your shield this morning, you would come back upon it to-night."
So Lettice had to be patient yet awhile.
CHAPTER XXII.
LETTICE TRIUMPHS.
But there was news of another kind which Mrs. Hartley did not conceal from Lettice. Her novel had been published, and it was a great success. The critics, who already knew something of her literary powers, had with one consent written long and special articles about "Laurels and Thorns," hailing it as a veritable triumph. It was original, and philosophic, and irresistibly pathetic; the style sufficed to mark its author as one of the few novelists whose literary form was irreproachable. Perhaps the praise was here and there extravagant, but it was practically universal. And it was not confined to the critics. The reading world more than endorsed it. Second and third editions of the book were called for within a month. Writers of leading articles and speakers on public platforms began to quote and commend her.
Most remarkable of all, her novel made a conquest of her brother Sydney. He did not care for novels as a rule, but he read "Laurels and Thorns," and was desperately interested in it. Perhaps the phenomenal success which had crowned it had some effect upon him; and Lady Pynsent wrote him a nice letter of congratulation, expressing a great desire to know his "distinguished sister." At all events, the thing was done, and Lettice must now be definitely accepted as a writer of books. What chiefly puzzled him was to think where she had learned her wisdom, how she came to be witty without his knowing it, and whence proceeded that intimate acquaintance with the human heart of which the critics were talking. He had not been accustomed to take much account of his sister, in spite of her knack with the pen; and even now he thought that she must have been exceedingly lucky.
It will readily be supposed that the breath of scandal which had passed over Lettice was in no way a drawback to the triumph of her book. The more she was talked about in connection with that sorry business, the more her novel came to be in demand at the libraries, and thus she had some sort of compensation for the gross injustice which had been done to her. One small-minded critic, sitting down to his task with the preconceived idea that she was all that Cora Walcott had declared her to be, and finding in "Laurels and Thorns" the history of a woman who regarded the essence of virtue as somewhat more important than the outward semblance, attacked her vehemently for a moral obliquity which existed in his own vision alone. This review also stimulated the run upon her book, and carried it into a fourth edition.
Lettice's fortune was made. She had nothing to do for the remainder of her life but to choose where she would live, to take a house, to fill it with furniture, to gratify every reasonable want, on the one condition that she should devote herself to honest hard work, and give to her fellow-creatures the best that she was capable of producing.