And it came about in this wise.
About four weeks after her engagement to the rich Southerner she received a visit from her Boston publisher.
He put into her hand a check for several hundred dollars, the receipts from her novel which until now had not paid for the first costs of its publication.
"I congratulate you, Miss Van Zandt," he said. "Your novel is suddenly becoming popular. The book-sellers report numerous calls for it, and in consequence I have large orders."
Maud's lip quivered, and her blue-gray eyes, so like Eliot's, dimmed with happy tears.
"At last!" she exclaimed, joyously. "Oh, I had ceased to hope or expect anything!"
"I have taken pains to inquire into the cause of your success after the unfriendliness of the critics had so long injured its sale," he said; "and I have found out that the real merits of your novel have at last been discovered and revealed by a friendly critic."
"I thought they were all my mortal foes!" she exclaimed.
He smiled, and answered: