"Oh no, he didn't. I could see that he pinned his faith to every
syllable."

"He used a quantity of pins, then; for I was particularly profuse of
syllables. I find that it requires no end of them to make the worse
appear the better reason to a poet who reads his own verses to you.
But come, now, Lucy, let me off a syllable or two. I--I have a
conscience, you know well enough, and if I thought--But pshaw! I've
merely cheered a lonely hour for the boy, and he'll go back to
hoeing potatoes to-morrow, and that will be the end of it."

"I _hope_ that will be the end of it," said Mrs. Sewell, with
the darkling reserve of ladies intimate with the designs of
Providence.

"Well," argued her husband, who was trying to keep the matter from
being serious, "perhaps he may turn out a poet yet. You never can
tell where the lightning is going to strike. He has some idea of
rhyme, and some perception of reason, and--yes, some of the lines
_were_ musical. His general attitude reminded me of Piers
Plowman. Didn't he recall Piers Plowman to you?"

"I'm glad you can console yourself in that way, David," said his
wife relentlessly.

The mare stopped again, and Sewell looked over his shoulder at the
house, now black in the twilight, on the crest of the low hill
across the hollow behind them. "I declare," he said, "the loneliness
of that place almost broke my heart. There!" he added, as the faint
sickle gleamed in the sky above the roof, "I've got the new moon