When Margaret first contrived to send her little poem to good Mr. Skidd, the editor of the "Industrious Workman," she had done it through her nurse, who had grown warmly attached to her mistress. She was quite young—this was her first place, and she came to the conclusion that if this was the life led by rich people, the poor had many more pleasures.
Margaret read her poem to her, which she but vaguely took in, and she also read her the note she wrote to the editor.
She had no knowledge of him except that at first the doctor had told her she could get books there, when she had asked him, he had also spoken highly of him as a cultivated and intellectual man, who had done a great deal towards spreading wholesome cheap literature, and that he edited a weekly paper of much merit.
Her idea, now, was to write something longer and more important. She had two great incentives to write: she had that something to say, without which all writing falls so flat; and she wished to get money for her sister.
Mr. Skidd received her proposal to write a book of poetry with some amusement.
The unknown gentleman who brought out her little poems at his own expense, after they had appeared in the paper, and who received for her the few shillings Mr. Skidd considered them worth, might not stretch his generosity so far as to embark in a larger book—but he would see. He spoke, therefore, rather vaguely to the young woman who came as messenger, so vaguely that Margaret imagined she must try, in some way, and have an interview with the man herself.
But how to accomplish this? True, there was a back door, but she could not bear going out through the connivance of the servant, who was cook and who was a disagreeable woman at all times. Fortune favoured her, however, in a few days. She was walking in the garden one afternoon with her nurse and baby when some one came to the front door with a message, which caused the grumpy man-servant to go into the house for a few seconds. Quick as thought, Margaret slipped out of her prison, and hurried along the road.
She was dizzy with excitement and the sense of freedom—to see Grace—and to arrange about her book.
Her face was glowing as she moved along. She must first see Grace, and then hurry on to do her business.
When she reached Grace's lodgings she was met by a homelike, kindly face; and Jean, forgetting everything but that she had a hard life of it, took her to her arms as though she had been a bairn of her own.