combined to crush me down. They succeeded long. But at last I
venture to hope that I am beating them. Happily, Nature endowed me
with a sanguine, joyous, elastic temperament. He who never despairs
seldom completely fails."

This speech rather perplexed Kenelm, for had not the minstrel declared
that his singing days were over, that he had decided on the
renunciation of verse-making? What other path to fame, from which the
critics had not been able to exclude his steps, was he, then, now
pursuing,--he whom Kenelm had assumed to belong to some commercial
moneymaking firm? No doubt some less difficult prose-track, probably
a novel. Everybody writes novels nowadays, and as the public will
read novels without being told to do so, and will not read poetry
unless they are told that they ought, possibly novels are not quite so
much at the mercy of cliques as are the poems of our Augustan age.

However, Kenelm did not think of seeking for further confidence on
that score. His mind at that moment, not unnaturally, wandered from
books and critics to love and wedlock.

"Our talk," said he, "has digressed into fretful courses; permit me to
return to the starting-point. You are going to settle down into the
peace of home. A peaceful home is like a good conscience. The rains
without do not pierce its roof, the winds without do not shake its
walls. If not an impertinent question, is it long since you have
known your intended bride?"

"Yes, very long."

"And always loved her?"