tted against.

In view of the fact that this was the last visit he purposed to the
Medhursts, Morgan had been feeling that a close conversation with
Margaret would prove too much of an ordeal for him, and he had
determined to talk to her as little as possible. But somehow he did
not find himself welcoming the practical inhibition from the other
side of the table; it gave him a sense of frustrated desire. If his
will made him say "I must not talk to her intimately, for I shall lose
all the ground I have gained by purposely avoiding this house so long;
I shall be drawn back close to her and, as the parting must come
nevertheless, the greater will be its anguish," his temperament made
reply: "What! you calculating effects, whose business has always been
poetry? Let your business still be poetry, but weave it out of life
instead of words. Abandon yourself without underthought. Live in that
wonderful region which is here, even as it is everywhere, but in which
only the souls of poets may wander and rejoice." And his temperament
prevailed over his will. He allowed the full flow of love to flood his
spirit. Great poems were summed up in one quick flash; in a second he
lived through a century of fine words.

And, as if divining his thought, she turned to him and spoke. Her
words seemed softly to ring through the din, and he gave himself up to
the full delight of the moment.

"Do you know, Morgan"--for he was always "Morgan" to everybody
there--"a great change has occurred in my dignity the last few days?"

"You are to marry a peer," he hazarded.

"I have risen much higher than that."

"You were at the utmost height."

"I only moved in yesterday, with my benches and mess and clay and wax
and tools. Pa had a hole made in the roof and a top light put in. I
feel so pleased with my studio, and, of course, I mean to entertain
there. We shall have such gay times, and I've a fine excuse for
keeping the company young and select."

"Too high up for old legs?"

"How shrewd!" she exclaimed. "I see that for real worldly insight one
must go to a poet."

"Thank you. This is the first time I've been accused of common sense."

"That is hardly to be wondered at. Your poems have every other
quality. You'll come up and see my studio anyhow?"

"By moonlight?"

"No, by candle light. And you the bearer, like the Latin motto on one
of my old school books."

Meanwhile the combat opposite still raged, and in the end Archibald
and Dian