An hour after the conversation narrated in the last chapter, the driver stopped at a fine-looking hotel.

“This is the place, then, where you are going to stay for a few weeks, before you leave this part of the country for ——,” said Mr. Walter; “allow me to speak for a dinner for us all; such a day as this does not dawn on us often in this world;” and he glanced affectionately at little Katy.

The party was soon seated round a plentifully-furnished table. Nettie stopped at every other mouthful to look into Katy’s eyes, or to kiss her, while little Katy gazed about bewilderingly, and grasped her mother’s hand tightly whenever her ear caught the sound of a strange voice or footstep.

“Will you have some soup, little puss?” said Mr. Walter, after they were seated at the table, pulling one of Nettie’s long curls.

“Ask my mother,” replied the child, with a quizzical look; “she’s the soup-erintendent.”

Mr. Walter threw up his hands, and a general shout followed this precocious sally.

“Come, come,” said Mr. Walter, when he had done laughing; “you have begun too early, little puss; come here and let me feel your head. I must take a phrenological look at you. Bless me! what an affectionate little creature you must be,” said he, passing his hand over her head; “stick a pin there now, while I examine the rest of your bumps.”

“You must not stick a pin in my head,” said Nettie; “I don’t like that way of expressing an o-pin-ion.”

“No further examination is necessary,” said the extinguished Mr. Walter; “I have done with you, Miss Nettie. What do you mean?” whispered he to Ruth, “by having such a child as that? Are we going to have another genius in the family?”

“I don’t know about that,” said Ruth, laughing; “she often says such things when she gets excited and hilarious, but I never encourage it by notice, and you must not; my physician told me not to teach her anything, and by all means not to let her see the inside of a schoolroom at present.”

“Well, well,” said Mr. Walter, “Miss Nettie and I must have a tilt at punning some day. You had better engage, Ruth, to furnish the Knickerbocker with smart repartees for his ‘Children’s Table,’ from your own fireside.”

“Prenez garde,” whispered Ruth, “don’t spoil her. Such a child needs careful training; she is high-spirited, warm-hearted, and sensitive;” and Ruth sighed.

“I interpret your thoughts,” said Mr. Walter; “but we must have no backward glances to-day. Those children will never suffer what you have suffered; few women ever did. Ruth, for the thousandth time I tell you, you are a brave woman!”

“—Upon my word,” said Mr. Walter, suddenly, blushing and thrusting his hand in his pocket, “I have committed the sin so common to all man-kind; carried letters for you round in my pocket all this time, without delivering them: here they are. I never saw a woman have so many letters as you do, ‘Floy;’ you’ll need a private secretary before long.”

Ruth broke the seal of one, saying, “You’ll excuse me a few moments,” and read:

“Patience, gentlemen, while I read No. 2,” said Ruth. No. 2 ran as follows:

After glancing over this letter Ruth broke into a merry laugh, and saying, “This is too good to keep,” read it aloud for the amusement of the company, who unanimously voted Hal. Hunnewell a composition every week, for his precocious impudence.

“Come, now,” said Mr. Walter, as Ruth took up No. 3, “if you have another of the same sort, let us hear it, unless it be of a confidential nature.”

Ruth looked over the letter a moment, and then read:

“I suppose you do not feel any curiosity to know what the papers say about your book,” said Mr. Walter, as Ruth refolded her letters. “I have quite a stock of notices in my pocket, which I have saved up. You seem to have taken the public heart by storm. You could not desire better notices; and the best of it is, they are spontaneous—neither begged nor in a measure demanded, by a personal call upon the editors.”

“What on earth do you mean?” asked Ruth.

“Look at ‘the spirit of ‘76’ flashing from her eyes,” said Mr. Grey, laughing, as he pointed at Ruth.

“I mean this,” said Mr. Walter, “that not long since I expressed my surprise to an able critic and reviewer, that he could praise a certain book, which he must have known was entirely deficient in merit of any kind. His answer was: ‘The authoress of that book made a call on me at my office, deprecated in the strongest terms any adverse criticism in the paper with which I am connected; said that other papers would take their tone from mine, that it was her first book, and that her pen was her only means of support, &c., &c. What can a man do under such circumstances?’ said my informant.”

“How could she?” said Ruth. “Of what ultimate advantage could it be? It might have procured the sale of a few copies at first, but a book, like water, will find its level. But what astonishes me most of all is, that any able reviewer should be willing to risk his reputation as a critic by such promiscuous puffery. How are the people to know when he speaks his real sentiments? It strikes me,” said Ruth, laughing, “that such a critic should have some cabalistic mark by which the initiated may understand when he speaks truthfully. It is such a pity!” continued Ruth thoughtfully; “it so neutralizes criticism. It is such a pity, too, that an authoress could be found so devoid of self-respect as to do such a thing. It is such an injury to those women who would disdain so to fetter criticism; who would launch their book like a gallant ship, prepared for adverse gales, not sneaking near the shore, or lowering their flag for fear of a stray shot.”

“Do you know, Ruth,” said Mr. Walter, “when I hear you talk, I no longer wonder at Hyacinth’s lack of independence and common sense; his share must, by some unaccountable mistake, have been given to you in addition to your own. But where are the children?”

They looked around; Katy and Nettie, taking advantage of this prolonged discussion, had slid from the table, in company with a plate of nuts and raisins, and were holding an animated conversation in a further corner.

“Why! what a great, big mark on your arm, Katy,” exclaimed Nettie; “how did it come?”

“Hush!” replied Katy; “grandma did it. She talked very bad about mamma to grandpa, and I started to go up into my little room, because, you know, I couldn’t bear to hear it; and she called to me, and said, ‘Katy, what are you leaving the room for?’ and you know, Nettie, mamma teaches us always to tell the truth, so I said, ‘because I cannot bear to stay and hear you say what is not true about my mamma.’ And then grandma threw down her knitting, seized me by the arm, and set me down, oh, so hard, on a chair; and said, ‘but you shall hear it.’ Then, oh, Nettie, I could not hear it, so I put my fingers in both ears; and then she beat me, and left that place on my arm, and held both my hands while she made me listen.”

During this recital, Nettie’s eyes glowed like living coals. When Katy concluded, she clenched her little fists, and said:

“Katy, why didn’t you strike her?”

Katy shook her head, and said in a low tone, “Oh, Nettie, she would have killed me! When she got angry she looked just like that picture of Satan we saw once in the shop window.”

“Katy, I must do something to her,” said Nettie, closing her teeth together, and planting her tiny foot firmly upon the floor; “she shan’t talk so about mamma. Oh, if I was only a big woman!”

“I suppose we must forgive her,” said Katy thoughtfully.

“I won’t,” said the impulsive little Nettie, “never—never—never.”

“Then you cannot say your prayers,” said the wise little Katy; “‘forgive us, as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.’”

“What a pity!” exclaimed the orthodox Nettie; “don’t you wish that hadn’t been put in? What shall we do, Katy?”

“Nettie,” said her mother, who had approached unnoticed, “what did you mean when you said just now, that you wished you were a big woman?”

Nettie hung her head for a minute, and twisted the corner of her apron irresolutely; at last she replied with a sudden effort, “you won’t love me, mamma, but I will tell you; I wanted to cut grandma’s head off.”

Little Katy laughed outright, as the idea of this Lilliputian combatant presented itself. Ruth looked serious. “That is not right, Nettie,” said she; “your grandmother is an unhappy, miserable old woman. She has punished herself worse than anybody else could punish her. She is more miserable than ever now, because I have earned money to support you and Katy. She might have made us all love her, and help to make her old age cheerful; but now, unless she repents, she will live miserably, and die forsaken, for nobody can love her with such a temper. This is a dreadful old age, Nettie!”

“I think I’ll forgive her,” said Nettie, jumping into her mother’s lap; “but I hope I shan’t ever hear her say anything against you, mother. I’m glad I wasn’t Katy. Didn’t you ever wish, Katy, that she might fall down stairs and break her neck, or catch a fever, or something?”

“Oh, mother, what a funny girl Nettie is!” said Katy, laughing till the tears came; “I had almost forgotten her queer ways! Oh, how grandmother would have boxed your ears, Nettie!”

The incorrigible Nettie cut one of her pirouettes across the room, and snapped her fingers by way of answer to this assertion.

While Ruth and her children were conversing, the two gentlemen were quite as absorbed in another corner of the apartment.

“It astonishes me,” said Mr. Grey to Mr. Walter, “that ‘Floy’ should be so little elated by her wonderful success.”

“It will cease to do so when you know her better,” said Mr. Walter; “the map of life has been spread out before her; she has stood singing on its breezy heights—she has lain weeping in its gloomy valleys. Flowers have strewn her pathway—and thorns have pierced her tender feet. The clusters of the promised land have moistened her laughing lip—the Dead Sea apple has mocked her wasted fingers. Rainbows have spanned her sky like a glory, and storms have beat pitilessly on her defenceless head. Eyes have beamed upon her smiling welcome. When wounded and smitten, she fainted by the way, the priest and the Levite have passed by on the other side. ‘Floy’ knows every phase of the human heart; she knows that she was none the less worthy because poor and unrecognized; she knows how much of the homage now paid her is due to the showy setting of the gem; therefore, she takes all these things at their true valuation. Then, my friend,” and Mr. Walter’s voice became tremulous, “amid all these ‘well done’ plaudits, the loved voice is silent. The laurel crown indeed is won, but the feet at which she fain would cast it have finished their toilsome earth-march.”

“It is time we gentlemen were going; let us talk business now,” said Mr. Walter, as Ruth returned from her conversation with the children. “How long did you propose remaining here, Ruth?”

“For a month or so,” she replied. “I have several matters I wish to arrange before bidding adieu to this part of the country, I shall try to get through as soon as possible, for I long to be settled in a permanent and comfortable home.”

“I shall return this way in a month or six weeks,” said Mr. Walter, “and if you are ready at that time, I shall be most happy to escort you and your children to your new residence.”

“Thank you,” said Ruth. “Good-bye, good-bye,” shouted both the children, as the two gentlemen left the room.