But this remark made Miss Millicent less willing than before to open the letter in her father's presence. She slowly left the room without answering and did not break the seal of her communication till she was in the seclusion of her chamber.
And it was quite a while, even then, before she summoned the necessary courage. Some days previous she had sent a MSS. to the great publishing house of Cutt & Slashem. The writing had taken up the best of her time for a year. She had high hopes that it was destined to lay the foundation of an artistic success. Her plot was novel, not to say startling. It was entirely out of the conventional order. It would be certain to arouse talk and provoke comment, if it got into print; and to make sure that it would get into print she had persuaded her father to write a little note, which she enclosed with the MSS., saying that he would pay a cash bonus, if the firm demanded it, to guarantee them against possible loss.
With this note in her mind, Miss Millicent had felt little doubt that her story would be accepted and printed. She only wondered how warmly they would praise her work. It was not enough to have them print it; she wanted something to justify her in saying to her father, "There, you see I was not wrong after all in thinking I could have a literary career!"
At last the envelope was removed, and the girl's astonished eyes lit upon this cold, dry statement:
"Messrs. Cutt & Slashem regret to be obliged to decline with thanks the MSS. of Miss M. Fern, and request to be informed what disposition she desires made of the same."
Millicent felt a ringing in her ears. Her hands grew clammy. A dull pain pressed on her forehead. She felt a faintness, a sinking at the heart. Was it possible she had read aright? Rejected, in this cruel way, without even a reference to her father's offer! It was atrocious, and, girl-like, she burst into a spasm of weeping.
How could she ever face her father? The sacrifices she had made came back to her, sacrifices of which she had thought little at the time, but which now seemed gigantic. There had been nights when she had not gone to bed till three, other nights when she had been too full of her subject to sleep and had risen in the small hours to finish some particularly interesting chapter. Twelve hundred pages there were in all, note size, in her large, round, almost masculine hand. And this time was all lost! She had mistaken her vocation. The greatest publishing house in the country had decided against her.
Gradually she dried her eyes. It would do no good to weep. She read the curt answer that had come in the mail, a dozen times. Why could not the firm have sent her a reason, an excuse that meant something? She wanted to know wherein her fault lay. It might be possible to correct it. Perhaps the state of business was to blame. The more she thought, the more determined she grew to investigate this strange affair, and within an hour she had donned her street clothes and started, without saying anything to the rest of the household of her intention, for the office of Cutt & Slashem in the city.
She knew that each large concern had one or more "readers," on whose judgment they relied in such matters. She, therefore, paused only long enough at the counting-room to get directed to Mr. Gouger. Her knock on the critic's door brought forth a loud "Come in," and as she entered she saw two men standing with hats in their hand, as if about to take their departure.