It is true he
always seemed quite content; but, then, he would often, she believed,
pretend not to be hungry, and certainly ate less and less. Hitherto she
had fought with all her might against running in debt to the
tradespeople, for, more than all else, she feared debt. Now, at last,
however, her resolution was in danger of giving way, when, happily,
Hector bethought himself of his precious books; to what better use could
he put them than sell them to buy food--wherein the books he had written
had failed him? Parcel by parcel in a leather strap, he carried them to
the nearest secondhand bookseller, where he had so often bought; now he
wanted to sell, but, unhappily, he soon found that books, like many
other things, are worth much less to the seller than to the buyer, and
where Hector had calculated on pounds, only shillings were forthcoming.
Yet by their sale, notwithstanding, they managed to keep a little longer
out of debt.
And in these days Annie had at length finished her fair copy of Hector's
last book, writing it out in her own lovelily legible hand--not such as
ladies in general count legible, because they can easily read it
themselves; she could do better than that, she could write so that
others could not fail to read. For Hector had always believed that the
acceptance of his first volume had been owing not a little to the fact
that he had written it out most legibly, and he held that what reveals
itself at once and without possibility of mistake may justly hope for a
better reception than what from the first moment annoys the reader with
a sense of ill-treatment.
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