l know them."

"Yes," sighed Mrs. Dodd, looking straight at the poet, "we all know
them."

At this juncture the sensitive Mr. Perkins rose and begged to be excused.
It was the small Ebeneezer who observed that he took a buttered roll with
him, and gratuitously gave the information to the rest of the company.

Elaine flushed painfully, and presently excused herself, following the
crestfallen Mr. Perkins to the orchard, where, entirely unsuspected by the
others, they had a trysting-place. At intervals, they met, safely screened
by the friendly trees, and communed upon the old, idyllic subject of
poetry, especially as represented by the unpublished works of Harold
Vernon Perkins.

"I cannot tell you, Mr. Perkins," Elaine began, "how deeply I appreciate
your fine, uncommercial attitude. As you say, the world is sordid, and it
needs men like you."

The soulful one ran his long, bony fingers through his mane of auburn
hair, and assented with a pleased grunt. "There are few, Miss St. Clair,"
he said, "who have your fine discernment. It is almost ideal."

"Yet it seems too bad," she went on, "that the world-wide appreciation of
your artistic devotion should not take some tangible form. Dollars may be
vulgar and sordid, as you say, but still, in our primitive era, they are
our only expression of value. I have even heard it said," she went on,
rapidly, "that the amount of wealth honestly acquired by any individual
was, after all, only the measure of his usefulness to his race."

"Miss St. Clair!" exclaimed the poet, deeply shocked; "do I understand
that you are actually advising me to sell a poem?"

"Far from it, Mr. Perkins," Elaine reassured him. "I was only thinking
that by having your work printed in a volume, or perhaps in the pages of a
magazine, you could reach a wider audience, and thus accomplish your ideal
of uplifting the multitude."

"I am pained," breathed the poet; "inexpressibly pained."

"Then I am sorry," answered Elaine. "I was only trying to help."

"To think," continued Mr. Perkins, bitterly, "of the soiled fingers of a
labouring man, a printer, actually touching these fancies that even I
hesitate to pen! Once I saw the fair white page of a book that had been
through that painful experience. You never would have known it, my dear
Miss St. Clair--it was actually filthy!"

"I see," murmured Elaine, duly impressed, "but are there not more
favourable conditions?"

"I have thought there might be," re