t, perhaps, before long receive some
tributes from his muse. Her protests he laughed away as the affectations
of modesty.

Now Hunt had never actually written a line of verse in his life, and had
no intention of beginning. He was simply preparing a grand move. From
the poet's corner of rural newspapers, and from comic collections, he
clipped several specimens of the crudest sort of sentimental trash in
rhyme. These he took to the local newspaper, and arranged for their
insertion at double advertising rates. A few days later, he bustled into
the parlor, smirking in his most odious manner, and, coming up to
Annie, thrust an open newspaper before her, marked in one corner to call
attention to several stanzas

"Written for the 'Express.' To A--E G----D."

With sinking of heart she took the paper, after ineffectually trying
to refuse it, and Hunt sat down before her with a supremely complacent
expression, to await her verdict. With a faint hope that the verses
might prove tolerable, she glanced down the lines. It is enough to say
that they were the very worst which Hunt, after great industry, had been
able to find; and there he was waiting, just the other side the paper,
in a glow of expectant vanity, to receive her acknowledgments.

"Well, what do you think of it? You need n't try to hide your blushes.
You deserve every word of it, you know, Miss Modesty," he said gayly.

"It's very nice," replied Annie, making a desperate effort.

"I thought you 'd like it," he said, with self-satisfied assurance.
"It's queer that a fellow can't lay on the praise too thick to please a
woman. By the way, I sent around a copy to Miss Roberts, signed with my
initials. I thought you 'd like to have her see it."

This last remark he called out after her as she was leaving the
room, and he was not mistaken in fancying that it would complete her
demoralization. During the next week or two he several times brought her
copies of the local paper containing equally execrable effusions, till
finally she mustered courage to tell him that she would rather he would
not publish any more verses about her. He seemed rather hurt at this,
but respected her feelings, and after that she used to find, hid in her
books and music, manuscript sonnets which he had laboriously copied out
of his comic collections. It was considerable trouble, but on the
whole he was inclined to think it paid, and it did, especially when he
culminated by fitting music to se