"And I suppose you never lose money; keep your accounts to a T; can keep a secret—"
"Oh, as to that," said Laura, "I am of too generous a disposition to keep anything. You see it is all owing to the nobility of my character that I have the reputation of being such a leaky vessel that you all turn me out of the room, when anything is going on you don't want the whole town to hear. By the by, mamma, you haven't told me what your next book is to be about?"
"It is to be the history of Mrs. Laura Hosmer, née Grey," said her mother. "Therein will be set forth all her gifts and graces, her deeds and her misdeeds."
"And a most instructive and entertaining work it will be," cried Laura. "I shall buy up a whole edition to give to my friends, shan't I, baby? Mamma, what a mistake you made in giving me the name you did," she ran gaily on. "All the Lauras one reads about in books are such proper creatures! See Miss Edgworth's stories, for instance. Look at her Lauras. But really, now, what is your next book to be?"
Mrs. Grey smiled and shook her head.
"Very well, if you won't tell me, I shan't tell you what mine is to be."
"Yours!" cried everybody, amused and incredulous.
"Oh, I don't see anything to laugh at," protested Laura. "Pray why shouldn't I write books as well as mamma?"
"Mamma didn't begin at your age," said Belle. "She began about as soon as she was born; and so would you if you had inherited her gifts."
"That doesn't follow," said Laura. "And I have hit upon a capital subject! Now just listen." And in an animated way she imparted her secret.