parsnips. While Lavinia's in the house I'll go bail I'll make her work.
If she goes away I've got to pay someone in her place, haven't I? Twenty
guineas is the very lowest I'll take, and if you was anything like the
gentleman you look you'd make it double."

The haggling over such a matter and the coarse mercenary nature of the
woman jarred upon the poet's sensitive soul. The plain fact that he
hadn't got twenty guineas in the world could not be gainsaid. But he had
rich friends. If he could only interest them in this protégée of his
something might be done. And there were the "Fables."

"Twenty guineas," he repeated. "Well, I'll do my best. In two days'
time, Mrs. Fenton, I will come and see you and most likely all will be
settled to your satisfaction."

"Two days. Aye. No longer or maybe my price'll go up."

"I shall not fail. Now, Mrs. Fenton, before I go I'd like to see Lavinia
once more."

"No, this business is between you an' me, mister. The hussy's naught to
do with it. She'll have to behave herself while she's with me. That's
all I have to say about _her_."

So Gay rose and walked out of the box feeling as though he'd been
through a severe drubbing. He might have been sufficiently disheartened
to shatter his castle in the air had he not seen Lavinia's big sorrowful
eyes fixed upon him from the kitchen. He dared not disobey her mother's
behest not to speak to her so he tried to smile encouragingly, and to
intimate by his expression that all was going well. Whether he succeeded