I am anything but that. Do you call me
hard on _Eve_, and the Lady in _Comus_?"

"No, indeed," I returned. "The Lady, like _Una_, makes Sunshine in a
shady Place; and, in fact, how should it be otherwise? For Truth and
Purity, like Diamonds, shine in the Dark."

He smiled, and, passing his Hand across his Brow to re-collect himself,
went on in a freer, less biting Spirit, to the Encounter with _Harapha_
of _Gath_, in which he evidently revelled, even to making me laugh,
when the big, cowardly Giant excused himself from coming within the
blind Man's Reach, by saying of him, that he had need of much washing
to be willingly touched. He went on flowingly to

"But take good Heed my Hand survey not thee;
My Heels are fetter'd, but my Fist is free,"

and then broke into a merry Laugh himself; adding, a Line or two after,

"His Giantship is gone, somewhat crest-fallen;

". . . there, Girl, that will do for To-day."

Meantime, his greater Poem had come out, for which he had got an
immediate Payment of five Pounds, with a conditional Expectance of
fifteen Pounds more on the three following Editions, should the Public
ever call for 'em. And truly, when one considers how much Meat and
Drink One may buy for Twenty Pounds, and how capricious is the Taste of
the critikal World, 'tis no mean Venture of a Bookseller on a
Manuscript of which he knows the actual value as little as a Salvage of
the Gold-dust he parts with for a Handful of old Nails. At all events,
the Sale of the Work gave Father no Reason to suppose he had made an
ill Bargain; but, indeed, he gave himself very little Concern about it;
and was quite satisfied when, now and then, Mr. _Marvell_ and Mr.
_Skinner_, or some other old Crony, having waded through it, looked in
on him to talk it over. Money, indeed, a little more of it, would have
been often acceptable. Mother now began to pinch us pretty short, and
lament the unsaleable Quality of Father's Productions; also to call us
a Set of lazy Drones, and wonder what would come of us some future Day;
insomuch that Father, turning the Matter sedately in his Mind, did
seriously conclude 'twould be well for us to go forth for a While, to
learn some Method of Self-support. And this was accelerated by an
unhappy Collision 'twixt my Mother and me, which, in a hasty Moment,
sent me, with swelling Heart, to take Counsel of Mrs. _Lefroy_, my
sometime Playfellow _Rosamond Woodcock_, then on the Point of embarkin