Читать онлайн
The Letter of Credit
The Letter of Credit
CHAPTER I.
THE LETTER
"Mother, I wonder how people do, when they are going to write a book?"
"Do?" repeated her mother.
"Yes. I wonder how they begin."
"I suppose they have something to tell; and then they tell it," said simple Mrs. Carpenter.
"No, no, but I mean a story."
"What story have you got there?"
The mother was shelling peas; the daughter, a girl of twelve years old perhaps, was sitting on the floor at her feet, with an octavo volume in her lap. The floor was clean enough to sit upon; clean enough almost to eat off; it was the floor of the kitchen of a country farmhouse.
"This is the 'Talisman,'" the girl answered her mother's question. "O mother, when I am old enough, I should like to write stories!"
"Why?"
"I should think it would be so nice. Why, mother, one could imagine oneself anything."