 writing as this has surely never been offered to girls, and all the readers
of the paper must be immensely grateful to you. I run eagerly to buy the paper
each week; I assure you I do. The stationer thinks I purchase it for a sister, I
suppose. But each section of the story seems to be better than the last. Mark
the prophecy which I now make: when this tale is published in a volume its
success will be great. You will be recognised, Miss Dora, as the new writer for
modern English girls.«
    The subject of this panegyric coloured a little and laughed. Unmistakably
she was pleased.
    »Look here, Whelpdale,« said Jasper, »I can't have this; Dora's conceit,
please to remember, is, to begin with, only a little less than my own, and you
will make her unendurable. Her tale is well enough in its way, but then its way
is a very humble one.«
    »I deny it!« cried the other, excitedly. »How can it be called a humble line
of work to provide reading, which is at once intellectual and moving and
exquisitely pure, for the most important part of the population - the educated
and refined young people who are just passing from girlhood to womanhood?«
    »The most important fiddlestick!«
    »You are grossly irreverent, my dear Milvain. I cannot appeal to your
sister, for she's too modest to rate her own sex at its true value, but the vast
majority of thoughtful men would support me. You yourself do, though you affect
this profane way of speaking. And we know.« he looked at Dora, »that he wouldn't
talk like this if Miss Yule were present.«
    Jasper changed the topic of conversation, and presently Whelpdale was able
to talk with more calmness. The young man, since his association with Fleet
&amp; Co., had become fertile in suggestions of literary enterprise, and at
present he was occupied with a project of special hopefulness.
    »I want to find a capitalist,« he said, »who will get possession of that
paper Chat, and transform it according to an idea I have in my head. The thing
is doing very indifferently, but I am convinced it might be made splendid
property, with a few changes in the way of conducting it.«
    »The paper is rubbish,« remarked Jasper, »and the kind of rubbish - oddly
enough - which doesn't attract people.«
    »Precisely, but the rubbish is capable
