journey when they were settled in their home. Then one evening,
seated with her husband before the fire in the study, with the yellow
cat in her lap, and the bull terrier on the rug, his white skin rosy
in the firelight, she said:

"Karl, I have something to tell you."

Von Rosen looked lovingly at her. "Well, dear?"

"It is nothing, only you must not tell, for the publishers insist
upon its being anonymous, I--wrote _The Firm Hand_."

Von Rosen made a startled exclamation and looked at Annie and she
could not understand the look.

"Are you displeased?" she faltered. "Don't you like me to write? I
will never neglect you or our home because of it. Indeed I will not."

"Displeased," said Von Rosen. He got up and deliberately knelt before
her. "I am proud that you are my wife," he said, "prouder than I am
of anything else in the world."

"Please get up, dear," said Annie, "but I am so glad, although it is
really I who am proud, because I have you for my husband. I feel all
covered over with peacock's eyes."

"I cannot imagine a human soul less like a peacock," said Von Rosen.
He put his arms around her as he knelt, and kissed her, and the
yellow cat gave an indignant little snarl and jumped down. He was
jealous.

"Sit down," said Annie, laughing. "I thought the time had come to
tell you and I hoped you would be pleased. It is lovely, isn't it?
You know it is selling wonderfully."

"It is lovely," said Von Rosen. "It would have been lovely anyway,
but your success is a mighty sweet morsel for me."

"You had better go back to your chair and smoke and I will read to
you," said Annie.

"Just as if you had not written a successful novel," said Von Rosen.
But he obeyed, the more readily because he knew, and pride and
reverence for his wife fairly dazed him. Von Rosen had been more
acute than the critics and Annie had written at high pressure, and
one can go over a book a thousand times and be blind to things which
should be seen. She had repeated one little sentence which she had
written in _The Poor Lady_. Von Rosen knew, but he never told her
that he knew. He bowed before her great, generous silence as he would
have bowed before a shrine, but he knew that she had written _The
Poor Lady_, and had allowed Margaret Edes to claim unquestioned the
honour of her work.

As they sat there, Annie's Aunt Susan came in and sat with them. She
talked a good deal about the wedding presents. Wedding presents were
very wond