“What do you call it?”
“I can’t find any appropriate name.”
“Did she ever have any of her verses printed?”
“She frequently hints that she has appeared in print, but she never showed me any of her printed poems. I have no doubt she has offered her verses in various directions, but editors are flinty-hearted sometimes, and I fear they have dropped her contributions into the waste-basket.”
“After all you have said, I feel considerably curious to pass an evening at the bower. But I am afraid the remembrance of the intellectual evening before you will give you an added pang in leaving Portville.”
“I can stand it,” said Barclay, smiling.
“True, you can correspond. I did not think of that.”
“Nor I. Mr. Howard, I could not respond to her letters in fitting language. You could do it better than I.”
“Is that a compliment? Thank you,” said Walter, with a low bow.
When he went to bed that night, there were two events to which he looked forward with interest. One was, his entrance upon his duties as teacher on Monday morning; the other, his visit to the bower of Miss Melinda Athanasia Jones on the following evening.