He evaded an answer.
“Are you sure that the quotation is from Milton?” inquired Mr. Smith, who was listening to the conversation.
“Certainly,” said Sidney.
“Are they, Arthur?” asked Smith, who had his suspicions, and apprehended another display of Sidney’s pedantry, and was determined if possible to put a check on his folly.
“If you require me to be candid in my answer,” said Arthur, quietly, “I do not think that they do belong to Milton at all.”
“Whose are they, then?” asked Sidney, rather petulantly.
“They are Cowley’s, to be found in vol. i., p. 132, of his works.”
“I never knew that Milton’s poem was tragedy, and that he wrote it in German until now,” observed Mr. Smith, ironically.
“Who said he did?” asked Arthur.
“Sidney.”