he touch of a woman's
fingers has driven sleep from your eyelids. No, you didn't tell me you
laid awake all night, but I saw it by looking at you. You can shut
yourself up in your room now, and rhapsodize over the dear face, the
lovely mouth, the soft voice of your beloved. In another week, if this
keeps on, you can write like a combination of George Eliot (after she
met Lewes) and Amelie Rives (before her marriage). A month later, Gouger
might rave over your productions, for you will be on the Matterhorn of
bliss unsatisfied."

A slight laugh, at his own excess of description, issued from the lips
of Mr. Weil, but the countenance of his companion was as firm as a rock.

"You are right," said Roseleaf, gravely. "Already I see the vast
difference between this sensation of love and the thing I imagined it to
be when I wrote those silly pages that Cutt & Slashem did so well to
reject. But I am torn between two desires. I want to write my
novel--until yesterday I thought no wish could be so great. And I also
want my wife." He breathed the word with a simple reverence that
affected even the flinty heart of his hearer. "I shall never rest easy
until I find her wholly mine, to love, honor and cherish while God gives
me breath!"

The hand of the elder man dropped heavily on the table by his side.

"_Good!_" he exclaimed. "_Very_ good! You could not have said it better.
There is an opportunity before you to accomplish both of these things. I
only wish to impress upon you the fact that they must come in the order
I have indicated, or one of them will never come at all. Write your
story while the fever of passion is on you. The dead calm of married
life would only bring the sort of novel that the shelves are already
piled with, nauseating to the public and a drug in the hands of the
publishers."

Roseleaf doubted the full correctness of these conclusions. He thought,
with that dear girl by his side, he could write with all the fervor of a
sweetheart, for his affection was to have no boundary, no limit, no end.
But he had a high opinion of the abilities of Mr. Weil, and he had no
idea of disputing the conclusions of that wise guide.

"Do you think she will accept me?" he asked, wistfully, returning to the
main question. "It came so sudden, and there was very little said, and
it was late; and then Hannibal came after her, and she went into the
house. Everything was left in a state of uncertainty."

"Did nothing show whether