The pair had been gone several minutes before I recovered my mental balance and awoke to a realization of the fact that I was a young fool who had sold himself (perhaps to the devil) for a few empty compliments and a peep into the deep well of an artful woman’s blazing eyes. I was inwardly cursing my stupidity while pacing up and down the floor of the "den" when I heard a timid knock at the door. In response to my invitation to "come in" a young lady entered. She was pretty and about twenty years of age, fair, with dark blue eyes and light brown hair. A blush suffused her face as she asked for the editor. I returned the usual answer.
"Perhaps you will do for my purpose," she said timidly. "I have here a piece of poetry."
I gasped as I thought, "It’s an ode on winter. Oh, Lord!"
"A piece of poetry," she continued, "on Britain’s Queen. If you will read it and find it worthy a place in your paper I shall be glad to write more. If it is worth paying for I shall be glad to get anything."
Her hand trembled as she produced the paper.
I thanked her and telling her that I would look it over she withdrew. I could not help contrasting the first with the last visitor. The one had attracted me by her artful and flattering tongue, the skilful use of her beautiful eyes and the pressure of her hand on my coat sleeve; the other by the modesty of her demeanor. The timid shyness with which she presented her poem had caught my fancy. I looked at the piece. It was poor, not but what the sentiment was there and the ideas were good, but they were not well put. As prose it would have been acceptable, but as verse it was impossible and was not worth anything.
The next was Christmas Day. It was my first Christmas in Victoria. Business was suspended. All the stores were closed. At that time in front of every business house there were wooden verandahs or sheds that extended from the fronts of the buildings to the outer edges of the sidewalks. One might walk along any of the down-town streets and be under cover all the way. They were ugly, unsightly constructions and I waged constant warfare against them until I joined the aldermanic board and secured the passage of an ordinance that compelled their removal. Along these verandahs on this particular Christmas morning evergreen boughs were placed and the little town really presented a very pretty and sylvan appearance. After church I went to the office and from the office to the Hotel de France for luncheon. The only other guest in the room was a tall, florid-faced young man somewhat older than myself. He occupied a table on the opposite side of the room. When I gave my order M. Sere remarked, "All the regular boarders but you have gone to luncheon and dinner with their friends. Why not you?"
"Why," I replied, with a quaver in my voice, "the only families that I know are dining with friends of their own, whom I do not know. I feel more homesick to-day than ever before in my life and the idea of eating my Christmas dinner alone fills me with melancholy thoughts."
The man on the other side of the room must have overheard what I said, for he ejaculated: