ste to the other end of the parlors, and brought
back an undersized young man. When he had been introduced to Overtop,
and shaken hands with him, the enthusiastic hostess quoted, somewhat
imperfectly, the beautiful conceit which Overtop had just uttered, and
remarked that it would be a capital subject for a poem.

Mr. Chickson turned his eyes upward to the ceiling, and then downward to
the floor, as if he were committing what he had heard to memory, and
then said it was very curious, but he had thought of the same theme
before, and was intending to write a poem on it next week.

"Now, that's just like you, you provoking creature!" said Mrs. Slapman,
tapping the poet playfully with her fan. "It's really selfish of you to
keep all your poetical thoughts for your poems."

Mr. Chickson smiled pleasantly, but said nothing; and when Mrs.
Slapman's attention was momentarily attracted by a passing remark from
another person, the poet improved the opportunity to slip away and take
another glass of champagne in the corner.

"Ah! gone, is he?" said Mrs. Slapman, remarking his disappearance.
"Though one of the most promising of our young poets, he is dull enough
in conversation. It may be said of him, as of Goldsmith, 'He writes like
an angel, but talks like poor Poll.' You may have read his poem, 'Echoes
of the Empyrean,' published in the _Weekly Lotus_."

Mr. Overtop was wicked enough to say that he had read and admired it.

"It is a curious fact in the history of the poem, that the subtle
thoughts which it evolves were the topic of discussion at one of my
_conversazioni_; and on that very night Chickson told me he had
forty-five lines written on the subject. The knowledge of that trifling
circumstance lends additional interest to the poem."

"That is, if anything could lend additional interest to it," observed
Overtop.

"You are right," said Mrs. Slapman. "TRUTH, like that which animates
every line of the 'Empyrean,' needs no factitious attractions. You have
read the 'Empyrean?'"--turning to Wilkeson and Maltboy, who had stood
hard by during this conversation, calm patterns of politeness.

Mr. Wilkeson, not understanding the question (his thoughts wandering
back to the pale mechanic and his child), nodded "Yes," and was
immediately put down on Mrs. Slapman's mental tablet as a quiet
gentleman of good taste. But Matthew Maltboy, distinctly understanding
it, was candid enough to say "No," and from that moment was as nothi