new views, kept her
from combating certain fallacies in them which had struck her.

"Why do you not write yourself, Mr. Barrett?"

"I have not the habit."

"The habit!"

"I have not heard the call."

"Should it not come from within?"

"And how are we to know it?"

"If it calls to you loudly!"

"Then I know it to be vanity."

"But the wish to make a name is not vanity."

"The wish to conceal a name may exist."

Cornelia took one of those little sly glances at his features which print
them on the brain. The melancholy of his words threw a somber hue about
him, and she began to think with mournfulness of those firm thin lips
fronting misfortune: those sunken blue eyes under its shadow.

They walked up to Mr. Pole, who was standing with Wilfrid and Emilia on
the lawn; giving ear to a noise in the distance.

A big drum sounded on the confines of the Brookfield estate. Soon it was
seen entering the precincts at one of the principal gates, followed by
trombone, and horn, and fife. In the rear trooped a regiment of
Sunday-garmented villagers, with a rambling tail of loose-minded boys and
girls. Blue and yellow ribands dangled from broad beaver hats, and there
were rosettes of the true-blue mingled with yellow at buttonholes; and
there was fun on the line of march. Jokes plumped deep into the ribs, and
were answered with intelligent vivacity in the shape of hearty thwacks,
delivered wherever a surface was favourable: a mode of repartee worthy of
general adoption, inasmuch as it can be passed on, and so with certainty
made to strike your neighbour as forcibly as yourself: of which felicity
of propagation verbal wit cannot always boast. In the line of procession,
the hat of a member of the corps shot sheer into the sky from the
compressed energy of his brain; for he and all his comrades vociferously
denied having cast it up, and no other solution was possible. This
mysterious incident may tell you that beer was thus early in the morning
abroad. In fact, it was the procession day of a provincial Club-feast or
celebration of the nuptials of Beef and Beer; whereof later you shall
behold the illustrious offspring.

All the Brookfield household were now upon the lawn, awaiting the attack.
Mr. Pole would have liked to impound the impouring host, drum and all,
for the audacity of the trespass, and then to have fed them liberally, as
a return for the compliment. Aware that he was being treated to the
honours of a great