Page:A Literary Courtship (1893).pdf/35

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leave you to make due allowance for the effect of a famous name upon an obscure person. So many people have actually asked me whether I wrote Spoils that my respect for the judgment of my fellow-creatures has perceptibly fallen.

"I remain, dear Miss Lamb,
"Very sincerely,
"Your would-be cousin,
"Lilian Leslie Lamb."

"Well, Jack," I said when I had finished the perusal of this interesting communication, "what are you going to do about it?"

"That is just the question."

"You might keep up the correspondence."

"Francis Dickson, you ought to be ashamed of yourself," cried John, with so much warmth, that I was convinced that he had had the same idea himself, and that that was why he seemed so out of sorts. Brunt has always had the impulses of a Bohemian, together with the character of a gentleman, and they sometimes conflict.

I knew that nothing could entertain