Finally the book was
produced, a small rather thickish octavo, on sufficiently wretched gray
paper which had suffered from want of thorough washing in the original
paper-mill. It was bound in a peculiarly deadly blue, of a rectified
Reckitt tint, which gave you dazzles in the eye at any distance under
ten paces. Janet had selected this as the most appropriate of colours.
She had also many years ago decided upon the title, so that Reckitt had
printed upon it, back and side, "The Heather Lintie," while inside there
was the acknowledgment of authorship, which Janet felt to be a solemn
duty to the world: "Poems by Janet Balchrystie, Barbrax Cottage, by New
Dalry." First she had thought of withholding her name and style; but, on
the whole, after the most prolonged consideration, she felt that she was
not justified in bringing about such a controversy as divided Scotland
concerning that "Great Unknown" who wrote the Waverley Novels.
Almost every second or third day Janet trod that long lochside road
to New Dalry for her proof-sheets, and returned them on the morrow
corrected in her own way. Sometimes she got a lift from some farmer or
carter, for she had worn herself with anxiety to the shadow of what she
had once been, and her dry bleached hair became gray and grayer with the
fervour of her devotion to letters.
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