gh--the laugh of Edgar Goodfellow--rang out as he told "Muddie" of
the success of his lecture, in Providence,--of the great audience and
the applause.

"Muddie," he cried, "my dream of _The Stylus_ will come true yet! A few
more such audiences and the money will be in sight! And let me add, I am
done with literary women--henceforth literature herself shall be my sole
mistress. I am more than ever convinced that the profession of letters
is the only one fit for a man of brain. There is little money in it, of
course, but I'd rather be a poor-devil author earning a bare living than
a king. Beyond a living, what does a man of brain want with money
anyhow?--Muddie, did it ever strike you that all that is really valuable
to a man of talent--especially to a poet--is absolutely
unpurchasable?--Love, fame, the dominion of intellect, the consciousness
of power, the thrilling sense of beauty, the free air of Heaven,
exercise of body and mind with the physical and moral health that these
bring;--these, and such as these are really all a poet cares about. Then
why should he mind what the world calls poverty?"

"Why indeed?" echoed happy "Muddie." It was so delightful to have her
son back at home, and in this hopeful, contented frame, she would have
agreed with him in almost any statement he chose to make.

He gave her loving messages from "Annie" and told her in the bright,
humorous way which was characteristic of Edgar Goodfellow, of many
pleasant little incidents of his journey. One of the nights to look back
upon and to gloat over in memory was this night by the fireside at
Fordham cottage with the Mother--a night of calm and content under the
home-roof after tempestuous wandering.

A quiet, sweet Christmas they spent together--he reading, writing or
talking over plans for new work, while she sat by with her sewing and
Catalina dozed on the hearth. Part of every day (wrapped in the old
cape) he walked in the pine wood or beside the ice-bound river, and for
the first time since the feverish dream of new love had come to him he
was able to visit the tomb of Virginia and to dwell with happiness, and
with a clear conscience, upon her memory. During these days of serenity
a ballad suggested by thoughts of her and his life with her in the
lovely Valley of the Many-Colored Grass took form in his mind. It was no
dirge-like song of the "dank tarn of Auber," but a song of a fair
"kingdom by the sea" and in contrast to the sombre "Ulalum