"You strong-minded woman! You want to emulate the Rachel."
"You have brought her," laughed Ermine at the sound of the well-known
knock, and Rachel entered bag in hand.
"I was in hopes of meeting you," she said to the Colonel. "I wanted to
ask you to take charge of some of these;" and she produced a packet of
prospectuses of a "Journal of Female Industry," an illustrated monthly
magazine, destined to contain essays, correspondence, reviews, history,
tales, etc., to be printed and illustrated in the F. U. E. E.
"I hoped," said Rachel, "to have begun with the year, but we are not
forward enough, and indeed some of the expenses require a subscription
in advance. A subscriber in advance will have the year's numbers for ten
shillings, instead of twelve; and I should be much obliged if you would
distribute a few of these at Bath, and ask Bessie to do the same. I
shall set her name down at the head of the list, as soon as she has
qualified it for a decoy."
"Are these printed at the F. U. E. E.?"
"No, we have not funds as yet. Mr. Mauleverer had them done at Bristol,
where he has a large connexion as a lecturer, and expects to get many
subscribers. I brought these down as soon as he had left them with me,
in hopes that you would kindly distribute them at the wedding. And I
wished," added she to Ermine, "to ask you to contribute to our first
number."
"Thank you," and the doubtful tone induced Rachel to encourage her
diffidence.
"I know you write a great deal, and I am sure you must produce something
worthy to see the light. I have no scruple in making the request, as
I know Colonel Keith agrees with me that womanhood need not be an
extinguisher for talent."
"I am not afraid of him," Ermine managed to say without more smile than
Rachel took for gratification.
"Then if you would only entrust me with some of your fugitive
reflections, I have no doubt that something might be made of them. A
practised hand," she added with a certain editorial dignity, "can always
polish away any little roughnesses from inexperience."
Ermine was choking with laughter at the savage pulls that Colin was
inflicting on his moustache, and feeling silence no longer honest, she
answered in an odd under tone, "I can't plead inexperience."
"No!" cried Rachel. "You have written; you have not published!"
"I was forced to do whatever brought grist to the mill," said Ermine.
"Indeed," she added, with a look as if to ask pardon; "our secrets have
been hardly fair towards you, but we made it a rule not to spoil our
breadwinner's trade by confessing my enormities."
"I assure you," said the Colonel, touched by Rachel's appalled look, "I
don't know how long this cautious person would have kept me in the dark
if she had not betrayed herself in the paper we discussed the first day
I met you."