"Ah, that is all you know of me, Miss Lingard!" returned Bascombe.
"--And then," he resumed, turning again to Wingfold, "what is it
they complain of? That some girls preferred a better man perhaps, or
that a penny paper once told the truth of their poetry."

"Or it may be only that it is their humour to be sad," said
Wingfold. "But don't you think," he continued, "it is hardly worth
while to be indignant with them? Their verses are a relief to them,
and do nobody any harm."

"They do all the boys and girls harm that read them, and themselves
who write them more harm than anybody, confirming them in tearful
habits, and teaching eyes unused to weep. I quote again, I believe,
but from whom I am innocent. If I ever had a grief, I should have
along with it the decency to keep it to myself."

"I don't doubt you would, George," said his cousin, who seemed more
playfully inclined than usual. "But," she added, with a smile,
"would your silence be voluntary, or enforced?"

"What!" returned Bascombe, "you think I could not plain my woes to
the moon? Why not I as well as another? I could roar you as 'twere
any nightingale."

"You have had your sorrows, then, George?"

"Never anything worse yet than a tailor's bill, Helen, and I hope
you won't provide me with any. I am not in love with decay. I
remember a fellow at Trinity, the merriest of all our set at a