before.

These experiences were mine. The plain claret of my mind was changed
to sparkling champagne, and at the very height of its effervescence I
wrote a story. The happy thought that then struck me for a tale was of
a very peculiar character, and it interested me so much that I went to
work at it with great delight and enthusiasm, and finished it in a
comparatively short time. The title of the story was "His Wife's
Deceased Sister," and when I read it to Hypatia she was delighted with
it, and at times was so affected by its pathos that her uncontrollable
emotion caused a sympathetic dimness in my eyes which prevented my
seeing the words I had written. When the reading was ended and my wife
had dried her eyes, she turned to me and said, "This story will make
your fortune. There has been nothing so pathetic since Lamartine's
`History of a Servant Girl.'"

As soon as possible the next day I sent my story to the editor of the
periodical for which I wrote most frequently, and in which my best
productions generally appeared. In a few days I had a letter from the
editor, in which he praised my story as he had never before praised
anything from my pen. It had interested and charmed, he said, not only
himself, but all his associates in the office. Even old Gibson, who
never cared to read anything until it was in proof, and who never
praised anything which had not a joke in it, was induced by the example
of the others to read this manuscript, and shed, as he asserted, the
first tears that had come from his eyes since his final paternal
castigation some forty years before. The story would appear, the
editor assured me, as soon as he could possibly find room for it.

If anything could make our skies more genial, our flowers
brighter, and the flavor of our fruit and cigars more delicious, it was
a letter like this. And when, in a very short time, the story was
published, we found that the reading public was inclined to receive it
with as much sympathetic interest and favor as had been shown to it by
the editors. My personal friends soon began to express enthusiastic
opinions upon it. It was highly praised in many of the leading
newspapers, and, altogether, it was a great literary success. I am not
inclined to be vain of my writings, and, in general, my wife tells me,
I think too little of them. But I did feel a good deal of pride and
satisfaction in the success of "His Wife's Deceased Sister." If it did
not make