, Myrtle Hazard came forward. She was greatly
delighted to meet her old friend, and even looked upon the young poet
with a degree of pleasure she would hardly have expected to receive
from his company. They both brought with them so many reminiscences of
familiar scenes and events, that it was like going back for the moment
to Oxbow Village. But Myrtle did not belong to herself that evening, and
had no opportunity to enter into conversation just then with either of
them. There was to be dancing by and by, and the younger people were
getting impatient that it should begin. At last the music sounded the
well-known summons, and the floors began to ring to the tread of
the dancers. As usual on such occasions there were a large number of
noncombatants, who stood as spectators around those who were engaged
in the campaign of the evening. Mr. Byles Gridley looked on gravely,
thinking of the minuets and the gavots of his younger days. Mr. Gifted
Hopkins, who had never acquired the desirable accomplishment of dancing,
gazed with dazzled and admiring eyes at the wonderful evolutions of the
graceful performers. The music stirred him a good deal; he had also been
introduced to one or two young persons as Mr. Hopkins, the poet, and he
began to feel a kind of excitement, such as was often the prelude of
a lyric burst from his pen. Others might have wealth and beauty, he
thought to himself, but what were these to the gift of genius? In fifty
years the wealth of these people would have passed into other hands.
In fifty years all these beauties would be dead, or wrinkled and
double-wrinkled great-grandmothers. And when they were all gone and
forgotten, the name of Hopkins would be still fresh in the world's
memory. Inspiring thought! A smile of triumph rose to his lips; he felt
that the village boy who could look forward to fame as his inheritance
was richer than all the millionnaires, and that the words he should set
in verse would have an enduring lustre to which the whiteness of pearls
was cloudy, and the sparkle of diamonds dull.

He raised his eyes, which had been cast down in reflection, to look upon
these less favored children of Fortune, to whom she had given nothing
but perishable inheritances. Two or three pairs of eyes, he
observed, were fastened upon him. His mouth perhaps betrayed a little
self-consciousness, but he tried to show his features in an aspect of
dignified self-possession. There seemed to be remarks and questioni