A Crooked Path | Page 9

heart sank within her at the thought of being harshly,
contemptuously rejected! It was a positive painful physical sense of
faintness that made her limbs tremble as she pressed on faster than she
was aware. "But I will do it--I will! If I succeed no humiliation will be
too great," she said to herself. "I will speak with all my soul! When I
begin, this horrible feeling that my tongue is dry and speechless will go
away. I must find out where this awful old man is; what is his street and

number. I dared not ask mother. First I will try the publisher; as the
'servants' hall' publications have rejected it, I shall offer Darrell's Doom
to a first-rate house. Why not try Channing & Wyndham? They cannot
say worse than 'no,' and I shall no doubt see a Directory there." Thus
communing with herself, she took an omnibus down Park Lane and
walked thence to the well-known temple of the Muses in Piccadilly.
Arrived there, a civil clerk took her card--which was her mother's--and
soon returning, asked if she had an appointment. "No, I have not, but
pray ask Mr. Channing or Mr. Wyndham to see me; I will not stay
more than a few minutes." The young man smiled slightly; he was
accustomed to such assurances. Almost as Katherine spoke, a stout
"country gentleman" looking person came into the warehouse, slightly
raising his hat as he passed her. A sudden inspiration prompted her to
say, "Pray excuse me, but are you Mr. Wyndham?"
"I am."
"Then do let me speak to you for five minutes."
"With pleasure," said the great publisher, graciously, and ushered her
into a sort of literary loose box or small enclosure in the remote
back-ground.
"I have ventured to bring you a manuscript," began Katherine, smiling
with all her might, with an abject desire to propitiate the arbiter of her
mother's fate.
"So I see," he returned, ruefully but politely.
"It is a beautiful story, and I thought it ought to be published by a great
house like yours," pursued Katherine.
"Thank you," he said, with a twinkle in his eye. "Pray is it your own?"
"Mine! Oh dear no! It is my mother's. She is not very strong, so I
brought it."

There was a slight faltering in her voice that suggested a good deal to
her hearer. "Then you are not Mrs. W. Liddell," glancing at the card,
"but Mrs. Liddell's daughter. Pray put down that heavy parcel. Three
volumes, I suppose?"
"Yes, three volumes, but they are not very long, and the story is most
interesting."
"No doubt. I hope it is not historical?"
"Oh no! quite modern."
"So much the better. Well, Miss Liddell, I will look at the manuscript,
or rather our reader shall, and let you know the result in due course; but
I must warn you that we are rather overdone with three-volume novels,
and there are already a large number of manuscripts awaiting perusal,
so you must not expect our verdict for some little time."
"When you will, but oh! as soon as you can," she urged.
"I will keep your address, and you shall hear at the earliest date we can
manage. Good-morning. Very damp, uncomfortable day."
Katherine felt herself dismissed, and almost forgot her ulterior intention.
"Would you be so very good as to let me look at the Directory, if you
have one?"
"Certainly," said Wyndham, who was slipping the card under the string
of poor Katherine's parcel. "Here, Tompkins, let this young lady see the
Directory. Excuse me--I am a good deal pressed for time;" and with a
bow he went off, the manuscript under his arm.
"Well, it is really in his hands, at all events," thought Katherine,
looking wistfully after it.
A boy with inky hands here placed that thick volume, the Post-Office
Directory, before her, and she proceeded to search confusedly among
the endless pages of names, a little strengthened and cheered by her

brief interview with the publisher. It seemed that she was in a lucky
vein: trouble is always conducive to superstition. When visible hope
fails, poor human hearts turn to the invisible and the improbable.
At last she paused at "John Wilmot Liddell, 27 Legrave Crescent,
Camden Town, N. W." That must be her uncle; they were all Wilmot
Liddells. How to reach his abode was the question.
The inky boy soon gave her the requisite information. "You take a
Waterloo 'bus at Piccadilly Circus; it runs through to Camden Town;
that is, to the beginning of Camden Town," he said. Katherine thanked
him, and again set forth.
It was a long, tedious drive. The omnibus was crammed with warm
passengers and damp umbrellas, but Katherine was too racked with
impatience and fear to heed small discomforts. Would