“Sir,—Your letter in regard to ‘Floy,’ &c., is at hand. You say, that perhaps I am not aware that you were the first to introduce ‘Floy’ to the public, and that you have made her reputation. It is fortunate for you that she made The Standard the channel of her first communications to the public. I know this very well, but I am not aware, nor do I believe, that you have made her reputation; neither do I think that you believe this yourself. The truth is simply this; ‘Floy’ is a genius; her writings, wherever published, would have attracted attention, and stamped the writer as a person of extraordinary talent; hence her fame and success, the fruits of which you have principally reaped. As to ‘Floy’s’ being under any obligations to you, I repudiate the idea entirely; the ‘obligation’ is all on the other side. She has made ‘The Standard,’ instead of you making her reputation. Her genius has borne its name to England, Scotland, Ireland,—wherever the English language is spoken,—and raised it from an obscure provincial paper to a widely-known journal. You say that you are wealthy, and can pay as much as anybody for ‘Floy’s’ services; I wonder this has never occurred to you before, especially as she has informed you frequently how necessitous were her circumstances. You also inform me that the circulation of The Standard has nearly doubled the past year. This I can readily believe, since it is something more than a year since ‘Floy’ commenced writing for it. In reply to your declaration, ‘that in case you are driven to compete for ‘Floy’s’ services, you can outbid all competitors,’ I have only to say that my contract with her is for one year; on its expiration, ‘Floy’ will be at liberty to decide for herself; you will then have an opportunity to compete for her pen, and enjoy the privilege of exhibiting your enterprise and liberality.
“Your ob’t servant, John Walter.”
Ruth waited some time after reading these letters, for Mr. Lescom to come in; but, finding he was still unexpectedly detained, she took a handful of letters, which the clerk had just received by mail for her, and bent her steps homeward.
CHAPTER LXXII.
The first letter Ruth opened on her return, was a request from a Professor of some College for her autograph for himself and some friends; the second, an offer of marriage from a Southerner, who confessed to one hundred negroes, “but hoped that the strength and ardor of the attachment with which the perusal of her articles had inspired him, would be deemed sufficient atonement for this in her Northern eyes. The frozen North,” he said, “had no claim on such a nature as hers; the sunny South, the land of magnolias and orange blossoms, the land of love, should be her chosen home. Would she not smile on him? She should have a box at the opera, a carriage, and servants in livery, and the whole heart and soul of Victor Le Pont.”
The next was more interesting. It was an offer to “Floy” from a publishing house, to collect her newspaper articles into a volume. They offered to give her so much on a copy, or $800 for the copyright. An answer was requested immediately. In the same mail came another letter of the same kind from a distant State, also offering to publish a volume of her articles.
“Well, well,” soliloquized Ruth, “business is accumulating. I don’t see but I shall have to make a book in spite of myself; and yet those articles were written under such disadvantages, would it be wise in me to publish so soon? But Katy? and $800 copyright money?” Ruth glanced round her miserable, dark room, and at the little stereotyped bowl of bread and milk that stood waiting on the table for her supper and Nettie’s; $800 copyright money! it was a temptation; but supposing her book should prove a hit? and bring double, treble, fourfold that sum, to go into her publisher’s pockets instead of hers? how provoking! Ruth straightened up, and putting on a very resolute air, said, “No, gentlemen, I will not sell you my copyright; these autograph letters, and all the other letters of friendship, love, and business, I am constantly receiving from strangers, are so many proofs that I have won the public ear. No, I will not sell my copyright; I will rather deny myself a while longer, and accept the per-centage;” and so she sat down and wrote her publishers; but then caution whispered, what if her book should not sell? “Oh, pshaw,” said Ruth, “it shall!” and she brought her little fist down on the table till the old stone inkstand seemed to rattle out “it shall!”