In trances of impatience the party awaited the issue of the examination.
But they were all let down into the very ‘Slough of Despond,’ when the next coffee-house letter coolly declared, that Mr. Lowndes could not think of publishing an unfinished book; though he liked the work, and should be ‘ready to purchase and print it when it should be finished.’
There was nothing in this unreasonable; yet the disappointed author, tired of what she deemed such priggish punctilio, gave up, for awhile, and in dudgeon, all thought of the scheme.
Nevertheless, to be thwarted on the score of our inclination acts more frequently as a spur than as a bridle; the third volume, therefore, which finished _The young lady’s entrance into the world_, was, ere another year could pass away, almost involuntarily completed and copied.
But while the scribe was yet wavering whether to abandon or to prosecute her enterprise, the chasm caused by this suspense to the workings of her imagination, left an opening from their vagaries to a mental interrogatory, whether it were right to allow herself such an amusement, with whatever precautions she might keep it from the world, unknown to her father?
She had never taken any step without the sanction of his permission; and had now refrained from requesting it, only through the confusion of acknowledging her authorship; and the apprehension, or, rather, the horror of his desiring to see her performance.
Nevertheless, reflection no sooner took place of action, than she found, in this case at least, the poet’s maxim reversed, and that
for she saw in its genuine light what was her duty; and seized, therefore, upon a happy moment of a kind _tête à tête_ with her father, to avow, with more blushes than words, her secret little work; and her odd inclination to see it in print; hastily adding, while he looked at her, incredulous of what he heard, that her brother Charles would transact the business with a distant bookseller, who should never know her name. She only, therefore, entreated that he would not himself ask to see the manuscript.
His amazement was without parallel; yet it seemed surpassed by his amusement; and his laugh was so gay, that, revived by its cheering sound, she lost all her fears and embarrassment, and heartily joined in it; though somewhat at the expence of her new author-like dignity.