"You know, Mrs. Percivale," said Mr. S., "you needn't be afraid about the composition, and the spelling, and all that. We can easily set those to rights at the office."
He couldn't have done any thing better to send the lump out of my throat; for this made me angry.
"I am not in the least anxious about the spelling," I answered; "and for the rest, pray what is to become of me, if what you print should happen to be praised by somebody who likes my husband or my father, and therefore wants to say a good word for me? That's what a good deal of reviewing comes to, I understand. Am I to receive in silence what doesn't belong to me, or am I to send a letter to the papers to say that the whole thing was patched and polished at the printing-office, and that I have no right to more than perhaps a fourth part of the commendation? How would that do?"
"But you forget it is not to have your name to it," he said; "and so it won't matter a bit. There will be nothing dishonest about it."
"You forget, that, although nobody knows my real name, everybody will know that I am the daughter of that Mr. Walton who would have thrown his pen in the fire if you had meddled with any thing he wrote. They would be praising me, if they praised at all. The name is nothing. Of all things, to have praise you don't deserve, and not to be able to reject it, is the most miserable! It is as bad as painting one's face."
"Hardly a case in point," said Mr. Blackstone. "For the artificial complexion would be your own work, and the other would not."
"If you come to discuss that question," said my father, "we must all confess we have had in our day to pocket a good many more praises than we had a right to. I agree with you, however, my child, that we must not connive at any thing of the sort. So I will propose this clause in the bargain between you and Mr. S.; namely, that, if he finds any fault with your work, he shall send it back to yourself to be set right, and, if you cannot do so to his mind, you shall be off the bargain."
"But papa,—Percivale,—both of you know well enough that nothing ever happened to me worth telling."
"I am sorry your life has been so very uninteresting, wife," said my husband grimly; for his fun is always so like earnest!
"You know well enough what I mean, husband. It does not follow that what has been interesting enough to you and me will be interesting to people who know nothing at all about us to begin with."