“That is too intellectual, as papa makes it,” said Ethel. “By the bye, Norman,” she added, as she had now walked with him a little apart, “it always was a bubble of mine that you should try for the Newdigate prize. Ha!” as the colour rushed into his cheeks, “you really have begun!”
“I could not help it, when I heard the subject given out for next year. Our old friend, Decius Mus.”
“Have you finished?”
“By no means, but it brought a world of notions into my head, such as I could not but set down. Now, Ethel, do oblige me, do write another, as we used in old times.”
“I had better not,” said Ethel, standing thoughtful. “If I throw myself into it, I shall hate everything else, and my wits will be woolgathering. I have neither time nor poetry enough.”
“You used to write English verse.”
“I was cured of it.”
“How?”
“I wanted money for Cocksmoor, and after persuading papa, I got leave to send a ballad about a little girl and a white rose to that school magazine. I don’t think papa liked it, but there were some verses that touched him, and one had seen worse. It was actually inserted, and I was in high feather, till, oh, Norman! imagine Richard getting hold of this unlucky thing, without a notion where it came from! Margaret put it before him, to see what he would say to it.”
“I am afraid it was not like a young lady’s anonymous composition in a story.”