"
"Do, if you please, and send it me at once. I am very glad to hear it
promises to be a great success. I am sure it quite deserves it. I have
already read it through twice. You may remember you got me a copy the
other day. I cannot help thinking it an altogether remarkable
production, especially for so young a man. He is quite young, I
believe?"
"Yes, ma'am--to have already published a book. But as to any wonderful
success, there is so little sale for poetry nowadays. I believe the one
you had yourself, my lady, is the only one we have been asked for."
"Much will depend," said the lady, "on whether it finds a channel of its
own soon enough. But get me another copy, anyhow--and as soon as you
can, please. I want to send it to my daughter. There is matter between
those Quaker-like boards that I have found nowhere else. I want my
daughter to have it, and I cannot part with my own copy," concluded the
old lady, and with the words she walked out of the shop, leaving Annie
bewildered, and with the strange feeling of a surprise, which yet she
had been expecting. For what else but such success could come to Hector?
Had it not been drawing nearer and nearer all the time? And for a moment
she seemed again to stand, a much younger child than now, amid the gusty
whirling of the dead leaves about her feet, once more on the point of
stooping to pick up what might prove a withered leaf, but was in reality
a pound-note, the thing which had wrought her so much misery, and was
now filling her cup of joy to the very brim.
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