Grant Allen.
Questions as to the identity of the author were already ‘in the air’; “F. M’s” answer to Mr. Allen shows that the author felt ‘her’ security menaced:
Kilcreggan, Argyll,
1894.
Dear Mr. Grant Allen,
You are very kind indeed—both to write to me, you who are so busy, and to promise to do anything you can for my book. It is very good of you. Truly, it is the busiest people who find time to do what is impossible to idle folk....
I have just had a letter of deeply gratifying praise and recognition from Mr. George Meredith, who says he finds my work ‘rare and distinctive.’ He writes one phrase, memorable as coming from him: “Be sure that I am among those readers of yours whom you kindle.”
Permit me, dear Mr. Allen, to make a small request of you. If you are really going to be so kind as to say anything about my book I trust you will not hint playfully at any other authorship having suggested itself to you—or, indeed, at my name being a pseudonym. And, sure, it will be for pleasure to me if you will be as scrupulous with Mr. Meredith or anyone else in private, as in public, if chance should ever bring my insignificant self into any chit-chat.
My name is really Fiona (i. e. Fionnaghal—of which it is the diminutive: as Maggie, Nellie, or Dair are diminutives of Margaret, Helen, or Alasdair).
I hope to have the great pleasure of seeing Mrs. Allen and yourself when (as is probable) I come south in the late autumn or sometime in November.