was coming; yes, it
was so nice, and, oh dear! should n't she be real happy to see him?

To Susan he appeared as a kind of divinity, almost too grand for human
nature's daily food. Yet, if the simple-hearted girl could have told
herself the whole truth in plain words, she would have confessed to
certain doubts which from time to time, and oftener of late, cast a
shadow on her seemingly bright future. With all the pleasure that the
thought of meeting Clement gave her, she felt a little tremor, a certain
degree of awe, in contemplating his visit. If she could have clothed her
self-humiliation in the gold and purple of the "Portuguese Sonnets,"
it would have been another matter; but the trouble with the most common
sources of disquiet is that they have no wardrobe of flaming phraseology
to air themselves in; the inward burning goes on without the relief and
gratifying display of the crater.

"A friend of mine is coming to the village," she said to Mr. Gifted
Hopkins. "I want you to see him. He is a genius,--as some other young
men are." (This was obviously personal, and the youthful poet blushed
with ingenuous delight.) "I have known him for ever so many years. He
and I are very good friends." The poet knew that this meant an exclusive
relation between them; and though the fact was no surprise to him,
his countenance fell a little. The truth was, that his admiration was
divided between Myrtle, who seemed to him divine and adorable, but
distant, and Susan, who listened to his frequent poems, whom he was in
the habit of seeing in artless domestic costumes, and whose attractions
had been gaining upon him of late in the enforced absence of his
divinity.

He retired pensive from this interview, and, flinging himself at his
desk, attempted wreaking his thoughts upon expression, to borrow the
language of one of his brother bards, in a passionate lyric which he
began thus--

"ANOTHER'S!

"Another's! Oh the pang, the smart!
Fate owes to Love a deathless grudge,
--The barbed fang has rent a heart
Which--which

"judge--judge,--no, not judge. Budge, drudge, fudge--What a disgusting
language English is! Nothing fit to couple with such a word as grudge!
And the gush of an impassioned moment arrested in full flow, stopped
short, corked up, for want of a paltry rhyme!

"Judge,--budge,--drudge,--nudge, oh!--smudge,--misery!--fudge. In
vain,--futile,--no use,--all up for to-night!"