you? I dare say
this to you; you will not think me conceited. Can we misunderstand
each other's hearts? And all this while you are alone! Oh! I have
mourned for you! Since I heard of your misfortune I have not tasted
pleasure. The light of heaven has been black to me, and I have
lived only upon love. I will not taste comfort while you are
wretched. Would that I could be poor like you! Every night upon
the bare floor I lie down to sleep, and fancy you in your little
chamber, and nestle to you, and cover that dear face with kisses.
Strange! that I should dare to speak thus to you, whom a few months
ago I had never heard of! Wonderful simplicity of love! How all
that is prudish and artificial flees before it! I seem to have
begun a new life. If I could play now, it would be only with little
children. Farewell! be great--a glorious future is before you and
me in you!'

Lancelot's answer must remain untold; perhaps the veil has been
already too far lifted which hides the sanctuary of such love. But,
alas! to his letter no second had been returned; and he felt--though
he dared not confess it to himself--a gloomy presentiment of evil
flit across him, as he thought of his fallen fortunes, and the
altered light in which his suit would be regarded by Argemone's
parents. Once he blamed himself bitterly for not having gone to Mr.
Lavington the moment he discovered Argemone's affection, and
insuring--as he then might have done--his consent. But again he
felt that no sloth had kept him back, but adoring reverence for his
God-given treasure, and humble astonishment at his own happiness;
and he fled from the thought into renewed examination into the state
of the masses, the effect of which was only to deepen his own
determination to share their lot.

But at the same time it seemed to him but fair to live, as long as
it would last, on that part of his capital which his creditors would
have given nothing for--namely, his information; and he set to work
to write. But, alas! he had but a 'small literary connection;' and
the entree of the initiated ring is not obtained in a day. . . .
Besides, he would not write trash.--He was in far too grim a humour
for that; and if he wrote on important subjects, able editors always
were in the habit of entrusting them to old contributors,--men, in
short, in whose judgment they had confidence--not to say anything
which would commit the magazine