y Gray, whatever kind of vision that was. And Fanchon
discovered that it was a great many kinds.

The transfer was made comfortably, with nice judgment of a respectable
interregnum, and to the greater happiness of each of the three young
people; no objection ensuing from the easy-going parents, who were
devotedly fond of Crailey, while the town laughed and said it was
only that absurd Crailey Gray again. He and Virginia were the best of
friends, and accepted their new relation with a preposterous lack of
embarrassment.

To be in love with Crailey became Fanchon's vocation; she spent all her
time at it, and produced a blurred effect upon strangers. The only man
with whom she seemed quite alive was Vanrevel: a little because Tom
talked of Crailey, and a great deal because she could talk of Crailey to
Tom; could tell him freely, as she could tell no one else, how wonderful
Crailey was, and explain to him her lover's vagaries on the ground that
it was a necessity of geniuses to be unlike the less gifted. Nor was she
alone in suspecting Mr. Gray of genius: in the first place, he was so
odd; in the second, his poems were "already attracting more than local
attention," as the Journal remarked, generously, for Crailey had ceased
to present his rhymes to that valuable paper. Ay! Boston, no less, was
his mart.

He was rather radical in his literary preferences, and hurt the elder
Chenoweth's feelings by laughing heartily at some poems of the late Lord
Byron; offended many people by disliking the style of Sir Edward Bulwer,
and even refused to admit that James Fenimore Cooper was the greatest
novelist that ever lived. But these things were as nothing compared with
his unpatriotic defence of Charles Dickens. Many Americans had fallen
into a great rage over the vivacious assault upon the United States in
"Martin Chuzzlewit;" nevertheless, Crailey still boldly hailed him (as
everyone had heretofore agreed) the most dexterous writer of his day and
the most notable humorist of any day. Of course the Englishman had not
visited and thoroughly studied such a city as Rouen, Crailey confessed,
twinklingly; but, after all, wasn't there some truth in "Martin
Chuzzlewit?" Mr. Dickens might have been far from a clear understanding
of our people; but didn't it argue a pretty ticklish vanity in ourselves
that we were so fiercely resentful of satire; and was not this very heat
over "Martin Chuzzlewit" a confirmation of one of the points the book