ges are very easy to learn when one has the habit of studying
them, and a slight inclination for etymology," Lady Mabel replied
modestly.

Now that the hour of publication was really drawing nigh, the poetess
began to feel the need of a confidante. The Duchess was admiring but
somewhat obtuse, and rarely admired in the right place. The Duke was
out of the question.

If a new Shakespeare had favoured him with the first reading of a
tragedy as great as "Hamlet," the Duke's thoughts would have wandered
off to the impending dearth of guano, or the probable exhaustion of
Suffolk punches, and the famous breed of Chillingham oxen. So, for want
of anyone better, Lady Mabel was constrained to read her verses to her
future husband; just as Moliere reads his plays to his housekeeper, for
want of any other hearer, the two Bejarts, aunt and niece, having
naturally plays enough and to spare in the theatre.

Now, in this crucial hour of her poetic career, Mabel Ashbourne wanted
something more than a patient listener. She wanted a critic with a fine
ear for rhythm and euphony. She wanted a judge who could nicely weigh
the music of a certain combination of syllables, and who could decide
for her when she hesitated between two epithets of equal force, but
varying depths of tone.

To this nice task she invited her betrothed sometimes on a sunny April
afternoon, when luncheon was over, and the lovers were free to repair
to Lady Mabel's own particular den--an airy room on an upper floor,
with quaint old Queen Anne casements opening upon a balcony crammed
with flowers, and overlooking the umbrageous avenues of Kensington
Garden, with a glimpse of the old red palace in the distance.

Rorie did his best to be useful, and applied himself to his duty with
perfect heartiness and good-temper; but luncheon and the depressing
London atmosphere made him sleepy, and he had sometimes hard work to
stifle his yawns, and to keep his eyes open, while Lady Mabel was deep
in the entanglement of lines which soared to the seventh heaven of
metaphysics. Unhappily Rorie knew hardly anything about metaphysics. He
had never read Victor Cousin, or any of the great German lights; and a
feeling of despair took possession of him when his sweetheart's poetry
degenerated into diluted Hegelism, or rose to a feeble imitation of
Browning's obscurest verse.

"Either I must be intensely stupid or this must be rather difficult to
understand," he thought helplessly, whe