The circumstances were these:—
I had reached the Grand Central Station just in time to catch the morning train; and as the cars swept out into the daylight, I settled myself into a seat with a comfortable and something too self-satisfied feeling. In the first place, I was glad to be out of New York,—partly because it was hot and dusty there, partly because I am not over-fond of Gotham, and partly because sundry pleasant bachelor friends and divers good times were awaiting me at the Boston end of the journey.
I looked out upon the sunny landscape, over which the splendors of an April day cast a glow of warmth and brightness, smiled at the remembrance of a retort I had made at the Century Club on the previous evening, which seemed to me rather neat, and then with a sort of mental nod of farewell to all the outside world I took up my book and prepared to follow the fortunes of the woful and wicked, but thoroughly charming French heroine with whose adventures I was at that particular time occupying myself. To my vexation, however, I discovered that instead of the second volume I had taken the first, and as I had no especial desire to peruse again the somewhat detailed account of the heroine’s youth, her career at school, her first confession and early marriage,—all these being preliminary to the impropriety and the interest of the book, which, after the reprehensible manner of French novels, began together,—I laid down the volume with a sigh, and resigned myself to a ride of unalleviated dulness.
A resource instantly presented itself, however, in the page which the lady in the seat before me was reading. As I glanced up I saw that she was entertaining herself with poetry, and the next moment a familiar line caught my eye:—
“If you were April’s lady, and I were lord of May.”
“Swinburne,” I mused, “or a collection of selected poems, perhaps. Wiseacres would say one ought to know what a reader is like by the book she reads; but in the first place that’s nonsense, and in the second place I don’t know what book she is reading. She has an exquisite ear, and her hair is something bewildering. ‘If you were April’s lady.’ April’s lady should be a capricious creature, all smiles and tears, with winning ways and wilful wiles,—impulsive and wayward, and thoroughly enchanting. It would not,”—my thoughts ran on in a professional turn, while my eyes dwelt appreciatively, if somewhat presumptuously, upon the lovely curve of my neighbor’s neck,—“it would not be a bad notion to write a story of such a maiden and call it ‘April’s Lady.’ Let me see, what should it be like?”
And upon this impulse I fell to pondering, when suddenly, as if by magic, a tale presented itself all complete in my mind. My mental action appeared to me more like that of remembering than of creating, so real and so complete was the pretty history. The self-willed, volatile damsel whose fortunes it concerned seemed one whom I had known, and whom I might meet again some day. In my mind she assumed, it is true, an outward semblance similar to that of the lady before me, upon whose back I fixed my regards in an absorbed stare, which should have disturbed her could looks make themselves felt. She did not move, however, and as she did not turn the leaf of her book, I fancied she might have fallen into a reverie as deep as my own. I had not been able fully to see her face, although a lucky turn had given me a glimpse of a profile full of character and beauty, and which made me desire to behold more. I did not, however, trouble myself about the exact details of my heroine’s features, since every story-teller has a stock of choice personal charms with which to endow his fictitious children, but continued to gloat over my little romance; and so vividly was the tale of “April’s Lady” impressed upon my mind that although some weeks elapsed before I found time to put it upon paper, I had not the slightest difficulty in recalling even its most trifling incidents.
Almost the whole of my journey was taken up in turning the story over in my mind, and when we drew into the Boston station, and my neighbor closed her volume to begin the collection of her numerous feminine possessions, I had half a mind to lean forward and thank her for having given me, although unconsciously, so good a story.
It did seem to me, even after I had sent my manuscript off and the dreadful moment came when one realizes that it is too late to make changes and consequently thinks of plenty of things he wishes to alter, that “April’s Lady” was the best work I had ever done. I had let a month or two pass between its first writing and the final revision, and I was pretty well satisfied that I had produced a really capital story. I fondly hoped Mr. Lane, the editor of the “Dark Red,” would be moved by its excellence to give me further orders; and the eagerness with which I one morning tore open an envelope upon which I recognized his handwriting, may be easily enough imagined, at least by members of the literary guild. My impatience gave place to profound astonishment as I read the following note:—