a silk
muffler instead of a collar and necktie, and omitted the usual stockings
between his slippers and his feet. In another minute he unostentatiously
entered the dining-room.

'Nay,' his mother was saying, 'I can't read it.' Tears of joyous pride
had rendered her spectacles worse than useless. 'Here, Annie, read it
aloud.'

Henry smiled, and he tried to make his smile carry so much meaning, of
pleasant indifference, careless amusement, and benevolent joy in the joy
of others, that it ended by being merely foolish.

And Aunt Annie began:

'"It is not too much to say that Mr. Henry Knight, the author of _Love
in Babylon_, the initial volume of the already world-famous Satin
Library, is the most-talked-of writer in London at the present moment.
I shall therefore make no apology for offering to my readers an account
of an interview which the young and gifted novelist was kind enough to
give to me the other evening. Mr. Knight is a legal luminary well known
in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the right-hand man of Sir George Powell, the
celebrated lawyer. I found him in his formidable room seated at a----"'

'What does she mean by "formidable," Henry? 'I don't think that's quite
nice,' said Mrs. Knight.

'No, it isn't,' said Aunt Annie. 'But perhaps she means it frightened
her.'

'That's it,' said Henry. 'It was Sir George's room, you know.'

'She doesn't _look_ as if she would be easily frightened,' said Aunt
Annie. 'However--"seated at a large table littered with legal documents.
He was evidently immersed in business, but he was so good as to place
himself at my disposal for a few minutes. Mr. Knight is twenty-three
years of age. His father was a silk-mercer in Oxford Street, and laid
the foundation of the fortunes of the house now known as Duck and
Peabody Limited."'

'That's very well put,' said Mrs. Knight.

'Yes, isn't it?' said Aunt Annie, and continued in her precise, even
tones:

'"'What first gave you the idea of writing, Mr. Knight?' I inquired,
plunging at once _in medias res_. Mr. Knight hesitated a few seconds,
and then answered: 'I scarcely know. I owe a great deal to my late
father. My father, although first and foremost a business man, was
devoted to literature. He held that Shakspere, besides being our
greatest poet, was the greatest moral teacher that England has ever
produced. I was brought up on Shakspere,' said Mr. Knight, smiling. 'My
father often sent communications to the leading London paper