manners. I
wonder if it is really her writing, and if she has sent it to me!'

'Would it not be a singular thing for a married woman to do? Though of
course'--(she removed her spectacles as if they hindered her from
thinking, and hid them under the timepiece till she should go on
reading)--'of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and
custom is no argument with them. I am sure I would not have sent it to a
man for the world!'

'I do not see any absolute harm in her sending it. Perhaps she thinks
that, since it is all over, we may as well die friends.'

'If I were her husband I should have doubts about the dying. And "all
over" may not be so plain to other people as it is to you.'

'Perhaps not. And when a man checks all a woman's finer sentiments
towards him by marrying her, it is only natural that it should find a
vent somewhere. However, she probably does not know of my downfall since
father's death. I hardly think she would have cared to do it had she
known that. (I am assuming that it is Ethelberta--Mrs. Petherwin--who
sends it: of course I am not sure.) We must remember that when I knew
her I was a gentleman at ease, who had not the least notion that I should
have to work for a living, and not only so, but should have first to
invent a profession to work at out of my old tastes.'

'Kit, you have made two mistakes in your thoughts of that lady. Even
though I don't know her, I can show you that. Now I'll tell you! the
first is in thinking that a married lady would send the book with that
poem in it without at any rate a slight doubt as to its propriety: the
second is in supposing that, had she wished to do it, she would have
given the thing up because of our misfortunes. With a true woman the
second reason would have had no effect had she once got over the first.
I'm a woman, and that's why I know.'

Christopher said nothing, and turned over the poems.

* * * * *

He lived by teaching music, and, in comparison with starving, thrived;
though the wealthy might possibly have said that in comparison with
thriving he starved. During this night he hummed airs in bed, thought he
would do for the ballad of the fair poetess what other musicians had done
for the ballads of other fair poetesses, and dreamed that she smiled on
him as her prototype Sappho smiled on Phaon.

The next morning before starting on his rounds a new circumstance induced
him to direct his steps to the bookseller's, an