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234 station once more demanded "Dora Thorne." In vain! The young man in attendance glanced over his volumes, shook his head, and offered me "Diana's Discipline," and a fresh book "The Fatal Lilies," also by the author of "Dora Thorne." Another stall at another station had all five of these novels, and a sixth one in addition, "A Golden Heart," by the author of "Dora Thorne," but still no "Dora." Elsewhere I encountered "Her Martyrdom" and "Which Loved Him Best," both stamped with the cabalistic words "By the Author of 'Dora Thorne';" and so it continued to the end. New stories without number, all from the same pen, and all countersigned "By the Author of 'Dora Thorne,'" but never "Dora." From first to last, she remained elusive, invisible, unattainable,—a Mrs. Harris among books, a name and nothing more.

Comedy is very popular at railway bookstalls: "My Churchwardens," by a Vicar, and "My Rectors," by a Quondam Curate; a weekly pennyworth of mild jokes called "Pick-Me-Up," and a still cheaper and still milder collection for a half-penny called "Funny Cuts;" an occasional shabby copy of