“Ah!” exclaimed Edward.
“But that is nonsense, dear,” said Susy, still consolatory. “The book is not yourself.”
“Not all myself, but part of myself—that is what I feel,” said Fanny.
“I cannot see that that is so. You are you—you yourself quite apart from the book. Whatever the book may be, you will still remain Fanny Burney, the best daughter and the best sister in the world. What does it matter if people—foolish people who know nothing about it—laugh at it or say nasty things about it? Do you think that that will make any of us like you the less?”
She put her arm about Fanny and kissed her on the cheek, and Fanny’s tears began to fall. The young man standing by felt more uneasy than he had ever felt in his life. He crossed the room and looked out of the window, turning his back upon the scene of the sisters. He did not know what to say to a girl when once she allowed herself to weep. He wished with all his heart that he had not been dragged into this business. But Fanny’s tears convinced him that his first impression of her reception of her book was the correct one: she was, like other young mothers he had heard of, bitterly repentant when it was too late.
The next sound of which he became aware was of the crinkling of the stiff paper of the wrapper. One of the girls was folding up the parcel. He glanced round and saw that it was Fanny herself who was so engaged. She had dried her tears; the expression on her face was one of resignation—one of determination to make the best of a bad matter.
“Ah, that’s better,” said he, going to her and picking up the string from the floor. “There’s no use crying over spilt milk, is there, Fanny? We have all kept your secret loyally, and no one need ever know that you so far forgot yourself. Certainly the revelation will never come from my lips.”
Fanny burst out laughing.
“Oh, dear Eddy, you are the best cousin that any poor girl could have,” she said. “Your words have helped me greatly. They have helped to make me feel what is the aspect of the world in regard to my poor little story. It has been my constant companion night and day for three years and more. I worked at it in the cold and I tried how I could improve pages of it, copying it and recopying it; I practised a duplicity which was foreign to my nature in writing it—I have deceived my father and my mother about it—I wasted my eyesight over it—I robbed myself of sleep so that I might complete it, and when it was completed I lay awake in anxiety lest no bookseller would look at it, all this trouble I had with it, so that the world might have of my best, and what is the verdict of the world after all this? You have pronounced it, dear Eddy—you said thoughtfully and consolingly—‘There’s no use crying over spilt milk.’ You are quite right. Not another tear will I shed over this poor little bantling of mine. ‘A Young Lady’s Entrance into the World’? Nay, call it rather a rickety brat that should never have made its entrance into the world at all.”