which renders even simple and hackeneyed phrases wonderful and unique.
Ethel clearly realised that her hold upon the boy's imagination had been
a fleeting midsummer night's charm, and that a word from Reginald's lips
had broken the potency of her spell. She almost saw the shadow of
Reginald's visage hovering over Ernest's letter and leering at her from
between the lines in sinister triumph. Finally reason came and
whispered to her that it was extremely unwise to give her heart into the
keeping of a boy. His love, she knew, would have been exacting,
irritating at times. He would have asked her to sympathise with every
phase of his life, and would have expected active interest on her part
in much that she had done with long ago. Thus, untruth would have stolen
into her life and embittered it. When mates are unequal, Love must paint
its cheeks and, in certain moods at least, hide its face under a mask.
Its lips may be honeyed, but it brings fret and sorrow in its train.

These things she told herself over and over again while she penned a
cool and calculating answer to Ernest's letter. She rewrote it many
times, and every time it became more difficult to reply. At last she put
her letter aside for a few days, and when it fell again into her hand it
seemed so unnatural and strained that she destroyed it.

Thus several weeks had passed, and Ernest no longer exclusively occupied
her mind when, one day early in September, while glancing over a
magazine, she came upon his name in the table of contents. Once more
she saw the boy's wistful face before her, and a trembling something
stirred in her heart. Her hand shook as she cut the pages, and a mist of
tears clouded her vision as she attempted to read his poem. It was a
piece of sombre brilliance. Like black-draped monks half crazed with
mystic devotion, the poet's thoughts flitted across the page. It was the
wail of a soul that feels reason slipping from it and beholds madness