“That always sounds so merciless,” said Ethel. She and Cherry were sitting on a settee under a maple. She turned to her friend. “Half the time he lives on next to nothing, and yet Philip says that it will do him no harm to wait. He may starve before the world finds him out.”
“Even if he does, he’ll be the happier in the world to come,” said I. “But don’t look for a sad-eyed, posing, long-haired, hollow-cheeked poet. Sibthorp sticks to prose, and he has a sense of humour that keeps him sane and satisfied and hopeful. I really think that if he were to be tremendously successful now that life would lose something of its savour. He feels in a vague way that he belongs to the line of those who have had to toil and wait before recognition came, and the thought is not distasteful.”
“Will he read to us, or will he be like you, and never read anything of his own?”
“Oh, he’ll read, if you press him—”
Just then we heard moans that we had supposed were never to be heard again, and Minerva came running out of the house.
“Oh, Mist. Vernon, Miss Pussy has fell down the well.”
“Not really?” said Ethel, jumping up from the settee. “Oh, Philip, you must get her out at once. We never can drink the water again.”
“Are you sure she’s there, Minerva?”
“’Deed I am. I had the top off to fix that chain that got unhooked agin, an’ she must have jumped up awn the edge and then fell in. She’ll be drowned, sure.”
“Where’s James?” said I, hurrying through the house.