Gillian’s astonishment and rapture actually woke grandmamma; not that she made much noise, but there was a disturbing force about her excitement; and the subject had to be abandoned.
As the great secret might be shared with Dolores, though not with the younger ones, whose discretion could not be depended upon, Gillian could enter upon it the more freely, though she was rather disappointed that an author was not such an extraordinary sight to Dolly as to herself. But it was charming to both that Bessie let them look at the proofs of the story she was publishing in a magazine; and allowed them as well as mamma, to read the manuscript of the tale, romance, or novel, whichever it was to be called, on which she wished for her aunt’s opinion.
Bessie took care, when complying with the girls’ entreaty, that she would tell them all she had written; to observe that, she thought ‘Clare’ a very foolish book indeed, and that she wished heartily she had never written it. Gillian asked why she had done it?
‘Oh,’ said Dolores, ‘things aren’t interesting unless something horrid happens, or some one is frightened, or very miserable.’
‘I like things best just and exactly as they really are—or were,’ said Gillian.
‘The question between sensation and character,’ said Bessie to her aunt. ‘I suppose that, on the whole, it is the few who are palpably affected by the mass of fiction in the world; but that it is needful to take good care that those few gather at least no harm from one’s work—to be faithful in it, in fact, like other things.’
And there was no doubt that Bessie had been faithful in her work ever since she had realized her vocation. Her lending library books, written with a purpose, were excellent, and were already so much valued by Miss Hacket, that Gillian thought how once she should have felt it a privation not to be allowed to tell her whence they came; but to her surprise on the Sunday, instead of the constraint with which of late she had been treated at tea-time, the eager inquiry was made whether this was really the authoress, Miss Merrifield?
Secrets are not kept as well as people think. The Hackets’ married sister was a neighbour of Bessie’s married sister, and through these ladies it had just come round, not only who was the author of ‘Charlie’s Whistle,’ etc., but that she wrote in the —— Magazine, and was in the neighbourhood.
All offences seemed to be forgotten in the burning desire for an introduction to this marvel of success. Constance had made the most of her opportunities in gazing at church; but if she called, would she be introduced?
‘Of course,’ said Gillian, ‘if my cousin is in the room.’ She spoke rather coldly and gravely, and Miss Hacket exclaimed—