"And now business being over," said Lintot, "will you dine with me? I am a plain man, only a joint and a pudding, which is just ready: I like to encourage young men in being punctual."
Walter declined the invitation, precisely because he wanted a dinner. He was, also, conscious that he had made a very bad bargain; but how could he chaffer and dispute about things so precious as the contents of those pages which were the very outpourings of his heart? There were recorded dreams glorious with the future, and feelings soft and musical with the past. He fancied Ethel Churchill's soft blue eyes filled with tears, as she turned the haunted leaves of which she had been the inspiration, and he was consoled for every mortification. He walked along those crowded streets alive but to one delicious hope; and amid poverty, labour, and discouragement, still steeped to the lip in poetry.
The fanciful fables of fairy land are but allegories of the young poet's mind when the sweet spell is upon him. Some slight thing
