"Well, upon my soul!" exclaimed Humphrey. "I wish you'd get some for me. Doesn't it just happen that you know of another?"
"Ah! you aren't so easy to accommodate. Miss Wix is a maiden, and her exes aren't large. She gets a guinea a week, and is affluent with it. It's a beautiful publication, sonny—a journal for young gals—and it sells like hot cakes. I tell you, The Outpost would give its ears for such a circulation."
Kent stared at him incredulously.
"A journal for young girls?" he echoed. "The acrimonious Wix? Is this a fact, or delirium tremens?"
"Fact, I swear. She does the Correspondence page; she's been on it a fortnight now. She's 'Aunt' something—I forget what, at the moment —they're always 'Aunt' something on that kind of paper. The young gals write and ask her questions on their personal affairs. One of 'em says she is desperately in love with a gentleman of her own age—seventeen—and isn't it time he told her his intentions, as his 'manner is rather like that of a lover'; and another inquires if 'marriage between first cousins once removed is punishable by law.' She calls them her nieces, and says, 'No, my dear Plaintive Girlie; I do not think you need despair because the gentleman of your own age has not avowed his feelings yet. A true lover is shy in the presence of his queen; but, with gentle encouragement on your part, all will be well. I was so glad to have your sweet letter.'"
"Miss Wix?"
"Miss Wix, yes. Her comforting reply to Changed Pansy the first week was a master-piece. Must have bucked Changed Pansy up a lot. And occasionally she has to invent a letter from a mercenary mother and admonish her. The admonishments of mercenary mothers are; estimated to sell fifteen thousand alone. You should buy a copy; it's on all the bookstalls."
"Buy it!" said Humphrey; "I'd buy it if it cost a shilling. What's it called? Well, I'm not easily astonished, but Miss Wix comforting Changed Pansy would stagger the Colossus of Rhodes. Does she like the work?"
"'Like' it? My boy, she execrates it—sniffs violently, and gets stiff in the back, whenever the stuff is mentioned. That's the cream of the whole affair. The disgust of that envenomed spinster as she sits ladling out gush to romantic schoolgirls makes me shake in the night. I've got her name now! She's 'Auntie Bluebell.' 'Auntie Bluebell's Advice to Our Readers'; Winsome Words, One penny weekly."
Kent himself began to shake, and but that the bookstalls were shut when he took his leave, he would have borne a copy home. He told the news to Cynthia, and she laughed so much that Sam Walford, underneath, turned on his pillow, and remarked gruffly to Louisa that he didn't know what Cynthia and Humphrey had got to be so lively about, he was sure, considering their circumstances, and that he was afraid Humphrey was "a damn improvident bohemian."