“‘And how did he find it out?’
“‘I don’t know myself, sir. He never would tell me.’...
“‘What entertainment you must have had from hearing people’s conjectures before you were known! Do you remember any of them?’...
“‘I heard that Mr. Baretti laid a wager it was written by a man; for no woman, he said, could have kept her own counsel.’
“This diverted him extremely.
“‘But how was it,’ he continued, ‘you thought most likely for your father to discover you?’
“‘Sometimes, sir, I have supposed I must have dropped some of the manuscript: sometimes, that one of my sisters betrayed me.’
“‘Oh! your sister?—what, not your brother?’
“‘No, sir; he could not, for——’
“I was going on, but he laughed so much I could not be heard, exclaiming: