Page:Wiggin--Ladies-in-waiting.djvu/85

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

MISS THOMASINA TUCKER



The bishop’s coachman always drove Miss Tucker home, and Appleton always walked to his lodgings, which were in the opposite direction, so nothing could be done that night, but he determined that another sun should not go down before he put his fate to the touch.

How could he foresee what the morning post would bring and deposit, like an unwelcome bomb, upon his breakfast tray?

His London publishers wanted to see him at once, not only on a multitude of details concerning his forthcoming book, but on a subject, as they hoped, of great interest and importance to him.

Thinking it a matter of a day or so, Appleton scribbled notes to Mrs. Kennion and Miss Tucker, with whom he was to go on an excursion, and departed forthwith to London.

Everything happened in London. The American publishers wanted a different title for the book and four more chapters to lengthen it to a size selling (at a profit)

73