“I’m not afraid. He has good sense, if you haven’t.”
“I’ll come and see you to-morrow, then.”
“Well, that will do.”
“Nobody ever had so much trouble before,” sighed Sue as she went off.
Mr. Hammerton was in high glee and teased Tessa all the way home about her book.
“The milk pails were on the fence twice, Lady Blue, that is tautology.”
“Oh, they kept them there.”
“And the grandmother was always knitting.”
“She always did knit.”
“Lady Blue, you are on the road to Poverty; he who walks the streets of Literature will stop at the house of Starvation. Homer was a beggar; Terence was a slave; Tasso was a poor man; Bacon was as poor as a church mouse; Cervantes died of nothing to eat. Are you not beginning to feel the pangs of hunger? Breath and memory fail me, or I would convince you. Collins died of neglect; Milton was an impecunious genius; every body knows how wretchedly poor Goldsmith was; and wasn’t poor old prodigious Sam Johnson hungry half his life? Chatterton destroyed himself. I tremble for you, child of Genius! Author of ‘Under the Wings,’ what hast thou to say in defence of thy mad career?”