to look over the loose sheets
the morning before I waited on her, and enlighten me by the experience which she
must have acquired in reading through the whole stock of three circulating
libraries, in Gandercleugh and the two next market-towns. When, with a
palpitating heart, I appeared before her in the evening, I found her much
disposed to be complimentary.
    »I have not been more affected,« said she, wiping the glasses of her
spectacles, »by any novel excepting the Tale of Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy, which
is indeed pathos itself; but your plan of omitting a formal conclusion will
never do. You may be as harrowing to our nerves as you will in the course of
your story, but unless you had the genius of the author of Julia de Roubigné,
never let the end be altogether overclouded. Let us see a glimpse of sunshine in
the last chapter; it is quite essential.«
    »Nothing would be more easy for me, madam, than to comply with your
injunctions; for, in truth, the parties in whom you have had the goodness to be
interested, did live long and happily, and begat sons and daughters.«
    »It is unnecessary, sir,« she said, with a slight nod of reprimand, »to be
particular concerning their matrimonial comforts. But what is your objection to
let us have, in a general way, a glimpse of their future felicity?«
    »Really, madam,« said I, »you must be aware that every volume of a narrative
turns less and less interesting as the author draws to a conclusion; just like
your tea, which, though excellent hyson, is necessarily weaker and more insipid
in the last cup. Now, as I think the one is by no means improved by the luscious
lump of half-dissolved sugar usually found at the bottom of it, so I am of
opinion that a history, growing already vapid, is but dully crutched up by a
detail of circumstances which every reader must have anticipated, even though
the author exhaust on them every flowery epithet in the language.«
    »This will not do, Mr. Pattieson,« continued the lady. »You have, as I may
say, basted up your first story very hastily and clumsily at the conclusion;
and, in my trade, I would have cuffed the youngest apprentice who had put such a
horrid and bungled spot of work out of her hand. And if you do not redeem this
gross error by telling us all about the marriage of Morton and Edith, and what
became of the other personages