the poet answered. "I'll find a cab, I
dare say. To-morrow, then, you'll come with me to Miss Grey's. You
needn't have any hesitation; you will be quite welcome, I assure you.
I'll call for you."

"Come to breakfast then at twelve."

"All right," the complacent Blanchet answered, his earlier awe having
given place to an easy familiarity; "I'll come."

He nodded and went his way. Victor Heron looked for a while after his
tall, slender, and graceful figure.

"He's a handsome fellow," Heron said to himself, "and a poet, and I can
easily imagine a girl being in love with him, or any number of girls.
She is a very fine girl, quite out of the common track. She must be very
happy. I almost envy him. No, I don't. What on earth have I to do with
such nonsense?"

He returned to his room and sat thinking for a while. All his political
worrying and grievance-mongering seemed to have lost character somehow,
and become prosaic, and unsatisfying, and vapid. It did not seem much to
look forward to, that sort of thing going on for ever.

CHAPTER XI.

THE GAY SCIENCE IN A NEW ILLUSTRATION.

Mary Blanchet was, for the time, one of the happiest women on the earth
when she had to bestir herself, on their returning home next day, to
make preparations for the test-reading of her brother's poems. To hear
Herbert's poems read was a delight which could only be excelled by the
pride and joy of having them read to such an audience. She had so long
looked up to Minola as a leader and a princess that she at last came to
regard her as the natural arbitress of the destiny of any one belonging
to the Blanchet family. In some vague way she had made up her mind that
if Miss Grey only gave the word of command, the young poet's works must
go forth to the world, and going forth must of course be estimated at
their proper worth. Her pride was double-edged. On this side there was
the poet-brother to show to her friends; on that side the friend who was
to be the poet-brother's patroness. Her "animula vagula, blandula"
floated all that day on the saffron and rose clouds of rising joy and
fame.

Nor was her gratification at all diminished when Herbert Blanchet called
very early to crave permission to bring Mr. Heron with him, and when he
obtained it Blanchet had thought it prudent not to rely merely on the
close friendship with Miss Grey, of which he had spoken a little too
vauntingly to Victor the night before, and it seemed to him a very
ne