p, with Mme. Alexandre--"the
three will go _gran'ly_ together! Not I al-lone perceive that, but
Scipion also--Castanado--Dubroca. Mr. Chester, my dear sir, the
pewblication of that book going to be heard roun' the worl'! Tha'z going
produse an epoch, that book; yet same time--a bes'-seller!"

Mademoiselle beamed. "Does Mr. Chester think 'twill be that? A
best-seller?"

Chester couldn't prophesy that of any book. "They say not even a
publisher can tell."

"Hah!" monsieur cried, "those cunning pewblisher'! they pref-er _not_ to
tell."

"Some poetry," Chester continued, urged by mademoiselle's eyes, "doesn't
pay the poets over a few thousand a year--per volume; while some novels
pay their authors--well--fortunes."

"That they go," madame broke in, "and buy some _palaces in Italie_! And
tha'z but the biginning; you have not count' the dramatization--hundreds
the week! and those movie'--the same! and those tranzlation'!"

"Well, I think we will be satisfied, Mr. Chester, with the tenth of that,
eh?"

Chester's reply was drowned in monsieur's: "No, my child! But
nine-tenth' _maybe_, yes! No-no-no! if those pewblisher' find out you
are satisfi' by one-tenth, one-tenth is all you'll ever see!"

"Ah," said mademoiselle to madame, "even the one-tenth I mustn't tell to
my aunts. They wouldn't sleep to-night. And myself--'publication,
dramatization, movies, translation'--I believe I'll lie awake till
daylight, making that into a song--a hymn!"

A wonderful sight she was, pausing in the open gate, with the little
high-fenced garden at her back, a street-lamp lighting her face. Chester
harked back to that first manuscript. It "ought not to wait another
week," he declared.

"No," monsieur said, "and since we all have read that egcept only you."

Chester looked to mademoiselle: "Then I suppose I might read it with the
Castanados alone."

"No," madame put in, "you see, you can't riturn at Castanado's
immediately to-morrow or next day. That next day, tha'z Sunday, but you
don't know if madame goin' to have the stren'th for that fati-gue. Yet
same time you can't wait forever! And bisside', yo' Aunt Corinne, Aunt
Yvonne--Mr. Chezter he's never have that lugsury to meet them, and that
will be a very choice o'casion for Mr. Chezter to do that, if----"

"If he'll take the pains," the niece broke in, "to call Sunday afternoon.
Then I'll have the manuscript back from Mr. Castanado and we'll read it
to my Aunt Co