yes as he did so. Uncle
Jasper had sprung impatiently to his feet.

"As to the lass being married," he said, "that's nothing; all women
marry, or if they don't they ought to. But what was that you said, John,
about writing, writing in a printed book? You were joking surely, man?"

"No, I was not," answered the father. "Go and show your uncle Jasper
that last article of yours, Charlotte."

"Oh, heaven preserve us! no," said uncle Jasper, backing a pace or two.
"I'm willing with all my heart to believe it, if you swear it, but not
the article. Don't for heaven's sake, confront me with the article."

"There's nothing uncommon in my writing for magazines, Uncle Jasper; a
great many girls do write now. I have three friends myself who----"

Uncle Jasper's red face had grown positively pathetic in its agitation.
"What a place England must have become!" he interrupted with a groan.
"Well, lass, I'll believe you, but I have one request to make. Tell me
what you like about your wedding; go into all the raptures you care for
over your wedding dress, and even over the lucky individual for whom you
will wear it; tell me twenty times a day that he's perfection, that you
and you alone have found the eighth wonder of the world, but for the
love of heaven leave out about the books! The other will be hard to
bear, but I'll endeavor to swallow it--but the books, oh! heaven
preserve us--leave out about the printed books. Don't mention the
unlucky magazines for which you write. Don't breathe to me the thoughts
with which you fill them. Oh, if there's an awful creature under the sun
'tis a blue-stocking, and to think I should have come back from England
to find such a horror in the person of my own niece!"

CHAPTER II.

THE POOR CHARLOTTE.

While this light and playful scene was being enacted in a wealthy house
in Prince's Gate, and Charlotte Harman and her father laughed merrily
over the Australian uncle's horror of authors and their works, another
Charlotte was going through a very different part, in a different place
in the great world's centre.

There could scarcely be a greater contrast than between the small and
very shabby house in Kentish Town and the luxurious mansion in
Kensington. The parlor of this house, for the drawing-rooms were let to
lodgers, was occupied by one woman. She sat by a little shabbily covered
table, writing. The whole appearance of the room was shabby: the
furniture, the carpet, the dingy windo