impertinent people as an intelligence office, looking over a heap of manuscripts with aching head and weary eyes, and thinking to himself that the business of enlarging the boundaries of human enjoyment was not half so agreeable an occupation as that of importing German dolls would be, when he was diverted from his desponding thoughts by the sudden apparition of a lady, accompanied by a small boy, who carried a large roll under his arm.
"You are the editor, I presume?" said the lady; and, having been assured of the correctness of her supposition, she seated herself in the only chair which was vacant in the sanctum all the other seats being filled with bundles of manuscripts, which were waiting to be returned to their authors, or consigned to the balaam-box. The lady then lifted her veil, and taking the roll from the boy, pleasantly informed the dismayed editor, for whom such visitors had long since lost all novelty, that she wished to occupy a few minutes of his time in reading a manuscript novel, which she desired his opinion of.
The editor declined the favor she intended him, as courteously as his temper would permit him to do; but she insisted that he would be charmed with the work, and she would permit him to publish it in his magazine. He pointed to the heaps of manuscripts lying all about him, on the shelves, on the tables, in baskets, on the floor, and in the chairs, beside two or three green boxes, which were filled full of accepted articles, waiting their turns to be published, and told her they had all prior claims, which must first be attended to.
But ladies who have a point to carry are deaf to all arguments which do not tend to further their purposes, and the strange authoress only smiled more pleasantly than before, and tossing her ringlets from her pale cheeks, said, in her persuasive voice, "Allow me to read you one chapter? I am sure it will interest you."
"Madam," replied the beleaguered editor, "I have no doubt of it; but what's the use? I could not use the story if it pleased me never so much. And then I should only feel the greater regret in being compelled to reject it."
"Ah! now," said the lady, "there is the most delightful character in it, and a ghost, and a most mysterious personage. It would make your magazine sell wonderfully. It is just the kind of story which
