onths before I was in the vein for composition, and then, with a
sudden dash, I began "The House of Elmore." It was half finished when
another strange incident in its little way occurred. I received one
morning a letter from Lascelles Wraxall (afterwards Sir Lascelles
Wraxall, Bart., as the reader may be probably aware), informing me that
he was one of the readers for Messrs. Hurst and Blackett, and that it
had been his duty some time ago to decide unfavourably against a story
which I had submitted to the notice of his firm, but that he had
intended to write to me a private note urging me to adopt literature as
a profession. His principal object in writing at that time was to
suggest my trying the fortunes of the novel which he had already read
with Messrs. Routledge, and he kindly added a letter of introduction to
that firm in the Broadway--an introduction which, by the way, never came
to anything.

[Illustration: THE DRAWING-ROOM.]

Poor Lascelles Wraxall, clever writer and editor, pressman and literary
adviser, real Bohemian and true friend--indeed, everybody's friend but
his own--I never think of him but with feelings of deep gratitude. He
was a rolling stone, and when I met him for the first time in my life,
years afterwards, he had left Marlborough Street for the Crimea; he had
been given a commission in the Turkish Contingent at Kertch; he had come
back anathematising the service, and "chock full" of grievances against
the Government, and he became once more editor and sub-editor, and
publisher's hack even at last, until he stepped into his baronetcy--an
empty title, for he had sold the reversion of the estates for a mere
song long ago--and became special correspondent in Austria for the
_Daily Telegraph_. And in Vienna he died, young in years still--not
forty, I think--closing a life that only wanted one turn more of
"application," I have often thought, to have achieved very great
distinction. There are still a few writing men about who remember
Lascelles Wraxall, but they are "the boys of the old brigade."

It was to Lascelles Wraxall I sent, when finished, "The House of
Elmore," the reader may very easily guess. Wraxall had stepped so much
out of his groove--for the busy literary man that he was--to take me by
the hand, and point the way along "the perilous road"; he had given me
so many kind words, that I wrote my hardest to complete my new story
before I should fade wholly from his recollection. The book w