Spence.

"Extremity of doleful comprehension!" said Miss Kingsley.

I felt that my opportunity had come. Carried away as I was by the
interest and excitement of the proceedings, I repeated from memory,
without embarrassment, the first five lines of Mr. Spence's poem
entitled "A Fragment (written after a night passed in the grave)."

"I lay a living soul within the tomb,--
A ghastly cabin damp with church-yard loam,
Where worms are rampant and where night enthrones
Darkness and horror, dust, decay, and bones;
Extremity of doleful comprehension."

There was a murmur of applause.

"Exquisitely apposite!" cried Mr. Fleisch, and for the first time he
surveyed me through his eye-glass with evident interest.

Mr. Spence bent forward in acknowledgement of the quotation. Mrs. Marsh
repeated after her neighbor,--

"Exquisitely apposite!"

"A fine passage and finely rendered," said Paul Barr; and he sighed
(though it was not obvious why), and emptied his glass.

I glanced at my hostess. To my surprise she was examining a tea-cup, and
as she looked up I saw that her face was no longer radiant. Our eyes
met, and in an instant the truth flashed upon me. She was jealous!
Without design I had too much absorbed the attention of the lion of the
evening. Or was it Paul Barr's glances that I had estranged?

For a moment I was both confounded and regretful, but in the next I had
decided that her resentment, if it were real, was unjustifiable. Any
success I had won was unpremeditated, and there was no reason why I
should be otherwise than natural, or decline to use to the best
advantage the talents which Heaven had given me. It was Mr. Spence
undoubtedly whom my hostess considered her especial property. She would
have earlier indicated her disapproval had the artist-poet been the
offender, for his glances had been unmistakable in their direction from
the first. I felt in no wise to blame. It was not my intention or
ambition to captivate either of these literary gentry; but if in my
endeavors to appreciate and sympathize with their thoughts and theories
I had been able to win their regard, was it for me to heed the envy of
one who grudged me this trifling tribute to my enthusiasm? Assuredly
not. Therefore I resolved to act exactly as if I were unconscious of
Miss Kingsley's disapprobation.

I was aroused from these reflections by hearing Mr. Fleisch call me by
name. He informed me in the curtailed speech we