dealt the latter a vigorous blow across the face with a broom
she carried, thereby toppling him over ignominiously into the
coal-scuttle, and then, placing her plump hands saucily
akimbo, she exclaimed with enchanting _naivete_: "There! Mr.
Free-and-easy! take _that_ for your imperance."

This little incident caused the author to fall back into his easy
chair in a condition of profound emotion. It appeared to have
corrected a certain dimness or obliquity in his vision, of the
existence of which its cure rendered him for the first time
conscious. The appearance of the little country girl (whose very
introduction into the romance the author had looked upon with
misgivings) had afforded the first gleam of natural, refreshing,
wholesome interest--in fact, the only relief to all that was
vapid, irrational, and unreal--which the combined action of the
characters in his romance had succeeded in producing. But the
enchantress who had effected this, so far from being the most
unadulterated product of his own brain and genius, was the only
one of all his _dramatis personæ_ who was not in the slightest
degree indebted to him for her existence. She was nothing
more than an accurate copy of Mary the house-maid, while the
others--the mis-formed, ill-balanced, one-sided creations, who,
the moment they were placed beyond the pale of their written
instructions--put out of the regular and pre-arranged order of
their going--displayed in every word and gesture their utter
lack and want of comprehension of the simplest elements of human
nature: _these_ were the unaided offspring of the author's fancy.
And yet it was by help of such as these he had thought to push
his way to immortality! How the world would laugh at him! and,
as he thought this, a few bitter tears of shame and humiliation