raction, it was the
best of defences. The golden bracelet on her wrist seemed to have
brought as much protection with it as if it had been a shield over her
heart.

But far away in Oxbow Village other events were in preparation. The
"fugitive pieces" of Mr. Gifted Hopkins had now reached a number so
considerable, that, if collected and printed in large type, with plenty
of what the unpleasant printers call "fat,"--meaning thereby blank
spaces,--upon a good, substantial, not to say thick paper, they might
perhaps make a volume which would have substance enough to bear the
title, printed lengthwise along the back, "Hopkins's Poems." Such a
volume that author had in contemplation. It was to be the literary event
of the year 1861.

He could not mature such a project, one which he had been for some time
contemplating, without consulting Mr. Byles Gridley, who, though he had
not unfrequently repressed the young poet's too ardent ambition, had yet
always been kind and helpful.

Mr. Gridley was seated in his large arm-chair, indulging himself in the
perusal of a page or two of his own work before repeatedly referred to.
His eye was glistening, for it had dust rested on the following passage:

"There is infinite pathos in unsuccessful authorship. The book that
perishes unread is the deaf mute of literature. The great asylum of
Oblivion is full of such, making inaudible signs to each other in leaky
garrets and unattainable dusty upper shelves."

He shut the book, for the page grew a little dim as he finished this
elegiac sentence, and sighed to think how much more keenly he felt its
truth than when it was written,--than on that memorable morning when he
saw the advertisement in all the papers, "This day published, 'Thoughts
on the Universe.' By Byles Gridley, A. M."

At that moment he heard a knock at his door. He closed his eyelids
forcibly for ten seconds, opened them, and said cheerfully, "Come in!"

Gifted Hopkins entered. He had a collection of manuscripts in his hands
which it seemed to him would fill a vast number of pages. He did not
know that manuscript is to type what fresh dandelions are to the dish of
greens that comes to table, of which last Nurse Byloe, who considered
them very wholesome spring grazing for her patients, used to say that
they "biled down dreadful."

"I have brought the autographs of my poems, Master Gridley, to consult
you about making arrangements for publication. They have been so