for the first time
is surely a nobler piece of work than to make him merely happy, and it
ought fairly to cost a good deal more. Minola had made a man for the
first time both grateful and happy. The work was a little expensive in
this case, but what miser will say that the money was thrown away?

It is not likely, however, that Minola would have been quite so much
delighted if she could have known all the feelings that her generous,
improvident patronage had awakened in the poet's breast. For Mr.
Blanchet knew women well, he thought; and he did not believe that mere
kindness alone could have impelled Minola to such an act of bounty.
Nor, making every needful allowance for the friendship between Miss
Grey and his sister, did he find in that a sufficing explanation of
Minola's liberality. He set himself to think over the whole matter
coolly and impartially, and he could come to no other conclusion than
that Miss Grey admired him. He was a handsome fellow, as he knew very
well, and tall, and romantic in appearance: what could be more natural
than that a poetic young woman should fall in love with him? He felt
sure that he had fallen in deepest love with her, but it is doubtful
whether he was yet in a condition to analyze his own excited feelings
very clearly. It is certain that he was madly in love with his poems,
with their gorgeous first edition, with the pride and the prospect of
the whole affair; and of course likewise in love with the patroness to
whom he was indebted for so much of a strange delight. But how much was
love of himself and how much of Minola, he did not take time to
consider.

There was an artistic and literary association to which Blanchet
belonged, and amid which he passed most of his nights. It was not
exactly a club, for it had neither definite rules nor even a distinct
habitation. It was a little sect rather than a club. It was an
association of men who believed each in himself, and all, at least for
the present, in each other. Their essential condition of existence was
scorn of the world's ways, politics, and theories of art. They held
that man himself was a poor creature, unworthy of the artist's serious
consideration. All that related to the well-being of that wretched
animal in the way of political government they looked down upon with
mere contempt. The science which professed to concern itself about his
health, the social philosophy which would take any account of his moral
improvement, we