"Have you ever been in love?" he inquired.
"Never."
"Why?"
"It was not necessary; I did not intend to write novels," said Archie, with a laugh. "But, come, we have bothered Lawrence enough. Let us go."
He took the package containing Miss Fern's story, and sauntered out, paying no attention to the peculiar glances that his friend, the critic, threw at him as he was leaving.
CHAPTER IV.
WITH TITIAN TRESSES.
Mr. Weil deciphered the MSS. of Miss Fern with some difficulty. Not that the handwriting was particularly illegible, though it did not in the least resemble copperplate engraving; but, as Mr. Gouger had intimated, the sentences were so badly constructed, and the punctuation so different from that prescribed by the usual authorities, that he was continually obliged to go back over his tracks and hunt for meanings. Nevertheless, within an hour from the time when he sat down in his room at the Hoffman House and opened the package he had brought, he had to confess himself deeply interested.