CHAPTER XIV.

Leonard went out the next day with his precious manuscripts. He had read
sufficient of modern literature to know the names of the principal London
publishers; and to these he took his way with a bold step, though a
beating heart.

That day he was out longer than the last; and when he returned, and came
into the little room, Helen uttered a cry, for she scarcely recognized
him,--there was on his face so deep, so silent, and so concentrated a
despondency. He sat down listlessly, and did not kiss her this time, as
she stole towards him. He felt so humbled. He was a king deposed.

He take charge of another life! He!

She coaxed him at last into communicating his day's chronicle. The
reader beforehand knows too well what it must be to need detailed
repetition. Most of the publishers had absolutely refused to look at his
manuscripts; one or two had good-naturedly glanced over and returned them
at once with a civil word or two of flat rejection. One publisher alone
--himself a man of letters, and who in youth had gone through the same
bitter process of disillusion that now awaited the village genius--
volunteered some kindly though stern explanation and counsel to the
unhappy boy. This gentleman read a portion of Leonard's principal poem
with attention, and even with frank admiration. He could appreciate the
rare promise that it manifested. He sympathized with the boy's history,
and even with his hopes; and then he said, in bidding him farewell,

"If I publish this poem for you, speaking as a trader, I shall be a