Calendar of the Church of England there are a number of Saints' Days;
some of these are printed in red, and are Red Letter Days, for which
services are appointed by the Church; others are printed in black, and
are Black Letter Days, and have no special services fixed for them. It
seemed to me that it would be interesting to take each of these days and
write a sketch of the life of the saint belonging to it, and accordingly
I set to work to do so, and gathered various books of history and legend
wherefrom to collect my "facts". I don't in the least know what became of
that valuable book; I tried Macmillans with it, and it was sent on by
them to someone who was preparing a series of church books for the young;
later I had a letter from a Church brotherhood offering to publish it, if
I would give it as an "act of piety" to their order; its ultimate fate is
to me unknown.

The short stories were more fortunate. I sent the first to the _Family
Herald_, and some weeks afterwards received a letter from which dropped a
cheque as I opened it. Dear me! I have earned a good deal of money since
by my pen, but never any that gave me the intense delight of that first
thirty shillings. It was the first money I had ever earned, and the pride
of the earning was added to the pride of authorship. In my childish
delight and practical religion, I went down on my knees and thanked God
for sending it to me, and I saw myself earning heaps of golden guineas,
and becoming quite a support of the household. Besides, it was "my very
own", I thought, and a delightful sense of independence came over me. I
had not then realised the beauty of the English law, and the dignified
position in which it placed the married woman; I did not understand that
all a married woman earned by law belonged to her owner, and that she
could have nothing that belonged to her of right.[1] I did not want the
money: I was only so glad to have something of my own to give, and it was
rather a shock to learn that it was not really mine at all.