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Mr. Pilbeam, both gratified and embarrassed by the effect of his words, picked up her tortoiseshell pin and handed it to her.

"I shall be more than satisfied," said Mr. Pilbeam. "Especially," he added, "if you will give me one of your books with your autograph in it."

"Of course I will," said Mrs. Morland. "Only I'm afraid they are all exactly alike. You see I wrote my first book by mistake, I mean I didn't know how to write a book so I just wrote it, and then all the others seemed to come out the same. But if I gave you the last one, would it do? My publisher, who is really very nice and not a bit like what you would expect a publisher to be," said Mrs. Morland, "I mean he is an ordinary person, not like a publisher I once met who simply sat in a room and depressed one, says I could afford to write a few bad books by now, but I think this would be a bad thing because someone who hadn't read any of my books might think they were all bad, and not read any more. Not," Mrs. Morland continued, standing up and clutching various pieces of portable property to her in preparation for her departure, "that I would really mind, only I do earn my living by them."