they were easier. And _now_, nothing's bad enough for Meredith's 'stilted
nonsense'--'characters without a spark of life in them'--'horrible
mannerisms'--you should hear him. Except the poems--ah, except the poems!
He daren't touch them. I say--do you know the 'Hymn to Colour'?" The
girl's eager eyes questioned her companion. Her face in a moment was all
softness and passion.

Mrs. Friend shook her head. The nature and deficiencies of her own
education were becoming terribly plain to her with every hour in
Helena's company.

Helena sprang up, fetched the book, put Mrs. Friend forcibly into an
arm-chair, and read aloud. Mrs. Friend listened with all her ears, and
was at the end, like Faust, no wiser than before. What did it all mean?
She groped, dazzled, among the Meredithian mists and splendours. But
Helena read with a growing excitement, as though the flashing
mysterious verse were part of her very being. When the last stanza was
done, she flung herself fiercely down on a stool at Mrs. Friend's feet,
breathing fast:

"Glorious!--oh, glorious!--

"Look now where Colour, the soul's bridegroom, makes
The House of Heaven splendid for the Bride."

She turned to look up at the little figure in the chair, half laughing,
half passionate: "You do understand, don't you?" Mrs. Friend again shook
her head despairingly.

"It sounds wonderful--but I haven't a notion what it means!" Helena