"You said you did."
"Never. You imagined that. I simply said I was writing a book—a daily-round sort of journal, as you described it. I never referred to publication."
Nanty turned up her veil and stared at me for some seconds.
"Well, well, well!" she said at length. "I wonder you didn't say so sooner."
"You never gave me an opportunity. At my first words you were off at a tangent, and then I became interested in your awful experiences."
She sat back and laughed.
"The impudence of the child drawing me like this. If you don't want your books published write fifty of them. It will keep you well out of mischief and do nobody any harm."
Then she fell into a brown study, and I prepared to tiptoe softly through the gate, when she cried suddenly—
"Wait! You have still not told me why you are doing this scribbling. I should have thought you would have found plenty to do without writing. There is your house—your sewing——"
"You will laugh."