It seemed as if she must have fits of absence.  In one instance her heroine began as a blonde and finished as a brunette; not in consequence of the use of any cosmetic, but through simple inadvertence.  At last it happened in one of her stories that a prominent character who had been killed in an early page, not equivocally, but mortally, definitively killed, done for, and disposed of, reappeared as if nothing had happened towards the close of her narrative.  Her mind was on something else, and she had got two stories mixed up and sent her manuscript without having looked it over.  She told this mishap to the Lady, as something she was dreadfully ashamed of and could not possibly account for.  It had cost her a sharp note from the publisher, and would be as good as a dinner to some half-starved Bohemian of the critical press.

The Lady listened to all this very thoughtfully, looking at her with great tenderness, and said, “My poor child!” Not another word then, but her silence meant a good deal.

When a man holds his tongue it does not signify much.  But when a woman dispenses with the office of that mighty member, when she sheathes her natural weapon at a trying moment, it means that she trusts to still more formidable enginery; to tears it may be, a solvent more powerful than that with which Hannibal softened the Alpine rocks, or to the heaving bosom, the sight of which has subdued so many stout natures, or, it may be, to a sympathizing, quieting look which says “Peace, be still!” to the winds and waves of the little inland ocean, in a language that means more than speech.

While these matters were going on the Master and I had many talks on many subjects.  He had found me a pretty good listener, for I had learned that the best way of getting at what was worth having from him was to wind him up with a question and let him run down all of himself.  It is easy to turn a good talker into an insufferable bore by contradicting him, and putting questions for him to stumble over,—­that is, if he is not a bore already, as “good talkers” are apt to be, except now and then.

We had been discussing some knotty points one morning when he said all at once: 

—­Come into my library with me.  I want to read you some new passages from an interleaved copy of my book.  You haven’t read the printed part yet.  I gave you a copy of it, but nobody reads a book that is given to him.  Of course not.  Nobody but a fool expects him to.  He reads a little in it here and there, perhaps, and he cuts all the leaves if he cares enough about the writer, who will be sure to call on him some day, and if he is left alone in his library for five minutes will have hunted every corner of it until he has found the book he sent,—­if it is to be found at all, which does n’t always happen, if there’s a penal colony anywhere in a garret or closet for typographical offenders and vagrants.

—­What do you do when you receive a book you don’t want, from the author?—­said I.