pathetic manner of her grave and the probability of the
sun shining on it early in the morning, and her mother
walking on it later in the day. At other times her malady
would seize her, and she would snatch the brick off the
string and throw it fiercely at Tennyson. Once, in an
uncontrollable fit of madness, she gave her sister Effie
a half-share in her garden tools and an interest in a
box of mignonette.

The poet stayed doggedly on. In the chill of the morning
twilight he broke the ice in his water-basin and cursed
the girl. But he felt that he had broken the ice and he
stayed.

On the whole, life at the cottage, though rugged, was
not cheerless. In the long winter evenings they would
gather around a smoking fire of peat, while Tennyson read
aloud the Idylls of the King to the rude old cottager.
Not to show his rudeness, the old man kept awake by
sitting on a tin-tack. This also kept his mind on the
right tack. The two found that they had much in common,
especially the old cottager. They called each other
"Alfred" and "Hezekiah" now.

PART III

Time moved on and spring came.

Still the girl baffled the poet.

"I thought to pass away before," she would say with a
mocking grin, "but yet alive I am, Alfred, alive I am."

Tennyson was fast losing hope.

Worn out with early rising, they engaged a retired
Pullman-car porter to take up his quarters, and being a
negro his presence added a touch of colour to their life.

The poet also engaged a neighbouring divine at fifty
cents an evening to read to the child the best hundred
books, with explanations. The May Queen tolerated him,
and used to like to play with his silver hair, but
protested that he was prosy.

At the end of his resources the poet resolved upon
desperate measures.

He chose an evening when the cottager and his wife were
out at a dinner-party.

At nightfall Tennyson and his accomplices entered the
girl's room.

She defended herself savagely with her brick, but was
overpowered.

The negro seated himself upon her chest, while the
clergyman hastily read a few verses about the comfort of
early rising at the last day.

As he concluded, the poet drove his pen into her eye.

"Last call!" cried the negro porter triumphantly.

III.--OLD MR. LONGFELLOW ON BOARD THE HESPERUS.

"It was the schooner Hesperus that sailed the wintry sea,
And the skipper had taken his little daughter to bear
him company."--LONGFELLOW.

There w