‘It is well that there should be one hard-working fellow in the family,’ said Oswald, as the door closed, ‘for the family’s sake; and then it is astonishing what a zest it gives to one’s own leisure—like—I suppose I must not quote Latin to you, Cara—like seeing a ship pitching and tossing at sea when one is safe on shore.’
‘How can you say so! how dare you say so!’ cried Cara, with flashing eyes. ‘Oh, what is the good of your poetry and stuff if it only makes you enjoy the sight of another person working—doing what you ought to have done! Is that all the good it is? It ought to be something pure, something noble, something to make your heart rise——’
‘Why, Cara!’ cried Oswald, aghast, yet half-laughing. ‘Poetry and stuff! is it you who are speaking, or someone else? This is quite a new outbreak for you.’
‘I did not mean that,’ cried Cara, with the hot blush of youthful shame; ‘still, if poetry does not make you more—a man—does not make you stronger and better, and more noble and true——’
‘My dear little girl! Poetry is not morals and the Ten Commandments. You have got confused in your reasonings. Come, never mind scolding me, Cara. Listen to this. Your little temper has been put out with your bear last night, and Ned’s gravities this morning. You want me to smooth you down again. And I don’t like to be scolded. It answers with coarser natures, but I am too sensitive. I want the warm atmosphere of commendation to bring me out. Ask my mother if it has not been ever thus from childhood’s hour. Ned can stand it. You may scold him for his good as much as you please—he will like it; but come here, Cara mia. Listen to this——’
‘Oh, Oswald!’
‘Don’t scold me, Cara! Look here. I am just going to send it off to the Piccadilly. I shall not be half so sure of it unless my little critic approves. Come, you are not going to be hardhearted. I do want so very much to hear what you think of this.’
He held out the dainty little manuscript, set forth in those irregular lines which are dear to youth. And Cara could not help feeling the pleasure and the grandeur of being his critic, and of hearing the poem read by its author, which was going to be printed, and to live for ever. It glanced across her mind how when Oswald was a great poet, as great as Tennyson or Browning, people would tell how he used to go and read his young verses to a girl whom he had known when he was a child; and this little scene arranged itself historically in her mind as a scene which would make the hearts of other girls beat with secret envy of her, the confidant of a poet. Thus Cara was mollified and yielded, and criticised only the verses, not the poet. Indeed, her criticism of the verses was of the mildest description, just enough to give zest to her almost unbounded praise. And the poet enjoyed himself greatly reading those innocent lines—which were quite innocent, if somewhat insipid—seeing her absorbed face and soft eyes full of attention, and delighting himself in the melody he had made. How wonderful is this appetite of youth for mere rhyme! Cara listened to each line chiming with the other in a trance of attention. It was as sweet to her as if it had been the truest music, and charmed her very soul.
Oswald went down to the office of the Piccadilly afterwards, in great satisfaction with his work. Sometimes these productions brought him in a guinea or two, and then how pleased he was! more pleased than if he had inherited a fortune. He thought himself on the high road to fame and fortune when this happened, and was pleased to let his friends think that he made a good deal of money by his pen. Luckily for him, he did not need to put any dependence upon these dilettante earnings; but they sweetened life to him, if they did not put much money in his purse. And the idea of Cara gave him a soft pleasure. He, too, thought how it might be told hereafter that his first critic was a beautiful girl, and that it was her enthusiasm which stirred him on to the heights he afterwards attained. ‘And what became of the beautiful girl?’ he thought he could hear somebody ask in posterity. Yes, indeed! what became of her? Should she marry the poet, and be his muse and his critic combined, or should she be drifted away into some other career, and carry the memory of him with her to her last day, not quite breaking her heart, perhaps, or at least no more than could be mended? He smiled as he went along, with a little conscious warmth on his face, and wondered how this would be.
But just then chance threw something else in his way. He met a procession of school girls—not a very wonderful thing—attended by one or two Sisters of one of the many modern Anglican sisterhoods, in poke bonnets and black veils, decorations which are often very effective when they surround a fair young countenance. Oswald had just caught sight of one which charmed him, and which was enclosed by a poke less rigid, and a veil less heavy than the others, which he concluded to mean novicehood, or even mere associateship. The owner of this soft serious face was too young to have made any permanent choice of so grave a kind, and was, indeed, only a governess to whom a modification of the conventual dress had been permitted as a privilege. Oswald crossed the road, and went along very demurely, though it was not his way, parallel with the procession, looking furtively, and, as he flattered himself, with purely artistic admiration, at the little shepherdess of the flock. ‘She is a Perugino,’ he said to himself, and already the ready verses began to flutter to his lips. He would write a poem about her; she was the most charming subject—a true Perugino, with just that warm glow of colour, not fair but mellow—those soft features, those modest eyes. He began on the spot:—