A Rebellious Heroine

not the Truth, nay, if it did but swerve a hai

gfel

ealist. He affected to say that he did not write his books; that he merely transcr

his work is that of an historian, and he should be quite as careful to write truthfully as is the historian. How is

served the Professor of Mathematics. "Histor

om he writes? What historian ever so vitalized Louis the Fourteenth as Dumas has vitalized him? Truly, in reading mere history

or, "the novelist is never t

ters than the Almighty has already provided for the use of himself and his brothers in literature; that he can involve these creations in a more dramatic series of events than it has occurred to an all-wise Providence to put into the lives of His creatures; that,

pool-balls-"then, in your estimation, an author is a thing to be le

on," returned Harley; "but, on the w

an author is an eye and a type-wri

awled Dr. Kelly, the young surgeon

rely these men we

y," he said, "and I can't explain it to you,

o on and explain it to us-I'm

hysical limitations; whose eye shall be able to pierce the most impenetrable of veils; to whom nothing in the way of obtain

of a New York newspaper reporter and

ters of his stories are concerned-he must have an eye which shall see all that they do, a mind sufficiently analytical to discern what their motives are, and the courage t

im become a photographe

e-painter," retorted H

s a man talking about not creating, and then throws out an invention like soulscape! Harley, you

ken for the mere reason that somebody else had ridiculed them. In fact, everybody else might have

u and the rest of mankind just why the shortest distance between two points is in a straight line. I'll take your collective and separate words for any

said Kelly, after Harley had departed. "There's precious little in the wa

as just large enough to make life painful to him. His income enabled him to live well enough to make a good appearance among, and share somewhat at their expense in the life of, others of far greater means;

" he said, "how happy I should be! But these orders-t

osition where he had many orders for the product of his pen, and such

bellious heroine of whom I have essayed to write

Messrs. Herring, Beemer, & Chadwick, the publishers, asking for

r Series.' We should like to have it a love-story, if possible; but whatever it is, it must be characteristic, and ready for publication in November. We shall need to have the manuscript by September 1st

ly called at the office of Messrs. Herring, Beemer, & Chadwick, where, after learning that their best t

artment, he went into what Ke

is little elevation, and peeps into the private life of hoi polloi until h

, and read it, and call for

re often enough, he will finally peep in at their key-holes and write them up. If he ev

e of his books, because you don't belong to real life at all. He thinks you are some new experime

down as I go," su

but he said he had no desire to write a lot of

-wait till Stuart Harley comes to me for a prescription. I'll get ev

s a fact that while meditating upon the possible output of his pen our author was as deaf to his surroundings as though he had departed into ano

n interesting lot. The hero was like most of those gentlemen who live their little lives in the novels of the day, only Harley had modified his accomplishments in certain directions. Robert Osborne-such was his name-was not the sort of man to do impossible things for his heroine. He was not reckless. He was not a D'Artagnan lifted from the time of Louis the Fourteenth to the dull, prosaic days of President Faure. He was not even a Frenchman, but an essentially American American, who desires to know, before he does anything, why he does it, and what are his chances of success. I am not sure that if he had happened to see her struggling in the ocean he would have jumped in to rescue the young woman to whom his hand was plighted-I d

d. "Men haven't time to read anything but the newspapers

ld villany was an essential part of Harley's literary creed, and this particular person was not conceived in heresy. His name was to have been Horace Balderstone, and with him Harley intended to introduce a lively satire on the employment, by certain contemporary writers, of the supernatural to produce dramatic effects. Balderstone was of course to be the rival of Osborne. In this respect Harley was commonplace; to his mind the villain always had to be the rival of the hero, just as in opera the tenor is always virtuous at heart if not otherwise, and the baritone a scoundrel, which in real life is not an invariable rule by any means. Indeed, there have been many instances in real life where the villain and the hero have been on excellent terms, and to the great benefit of the hero too. But in this case Balderstone was to follow in the rut, and become the rival of Osborne for the hand of Marguerite Andrews-the heroine. Balderstone was to write a book, which for a time should so fascinate Miss Andrews that she would be blind to the desirability of Osborne as a husband-elect; a book full of the weird and thrilling, d

etting forth of her peculiarities and charms-there were a number of minor characters, not so necessary to the story perhaps as they might have been, but interesting en

of character in every book-the positive, the average, and the negative. In that way you grade your story off into the rest of the world, and your reader feels that while he may never have met the positive characters, he has m

tel parlors, however. Mrs. Corwin was this lady's name, and she was to enact the r?le of chaperon to Miss Andrews. With Mrs. Corwin, by force of

was to meet Horace Balderstone on that vessel on the evening of the second day out, with which incident the interest of Harley's story was to begin. But Harley had counted without his heroine