est reflection, my lady, on your desire for
satisfaction," he said; "rather, indeed, it flatters me. But is it not
strange the heart should be less ready to believe what seems worth
believing? Something must be true: why not the worthy--oftener at least
than the unworthy? Why should it be easier to believe hard things of
God, for instance, than lovely things?--or that one man copied from
another, than that he should have made the thing himself? Some would
yet say I contrived all this semblance of composition in order to lay
the surer claim to that to which I had none--nor would take the trouble
to follow the thing through its development! But it will be easy for
you, my lady, and no bad exercise in logic and analysis, to determine
whether the genuine growth of the poem be before you in these papers or
not."

"I shall find it most interesting," said lady Arctura: "so much I can
tell already! I never saw anything of the kind before, and had no idea
how poetry was made. Does it always take so much labour?"

"Some verses take much more; some none at all. The labour is in getting
the husks of expression cleared off, so that the thought may show
itself plainly."

At this point Mrs. Brookes, thinking probably the young people had had
long enough conference, entered, and after a little talk with her, lady
Arctura kissed her and bade her good night. Donal retired to his aerial
chamber, wondering whether the lady of the house had indeed changed as
much as she seemed to have changed.

From that time, whether it was that lady Arctura had previously avoided
meeting him and now did not, or from other causes, Donal and she met
much oftener as they went about the place, nor did they ever pass
without a mutual smile and greeting.

The next day but one, she brought him his papers to the schoolroom. She
had read every erasure and correction, she told him, and could no
longer have had a doubt that the writer of the papers was the maker of
the verses, even had she not previously learned thorough confidence in
the man himself.

"They would possibly fail to convince a jury though!" he said, as he
rose and went to throw them in the fire.

Divining his intent, Arctura darted after him, and caught them just in
time.

"Let me keep them," she pleaded, "--for my humiliation!"

"Do with them what you like, my lady," said Donal. "They are of no
value to me--except that you care for them."

CHAPTER XXXIV.

COBBLER AND CASTLE.

I