LIPPINCOTT'S
MONTHLY MAGAZINE
AUGUST, 1887.
A LAND OF LOVE.
"'Tis thus that an ardent youngster makes
The Latin Quarter a land of love."
of Jean Prouvaire's Song.
I.
AFTER Stephen Ormizon had put the finishing touches to the last page of his novel, A Voice from the Wilderness,—which he did in Paris, early in August, 1885,—he was anxious, for precautionary reasons that we need not enter into here, to have a copy made of the manuscript; and to this end he advertised for a copyist in the Morning News. The post brought him thirteen replies: ominous number. Of these, six were hopelessly bad in the prerequisite of penmanship. Six were edifying specimens of English as she can be wrote, when venturesome and intrepid Frenchmen seriously bend their minds to it. The thirteenth, also, appeared to be of native authorship; but it was feasible. Written in a delicate feminine hand, upon paper that was haunted by the mere ghost of a sweet smell, it ran thus:
"Sir,—In response to the enclosed advertisement, cut from the Morning News of yesterday, I beg leave to say that I should very much like to make the copy which you desire, if you infer from this example that my handwriting will be suitable,
