“It was long before the vulgar one saw it, and then he laughed so much that the baby began to cry, and they had to go into the next room for fear of disturbing it. Having left the door open, the fair baby got out of its cradle, and, being old enough to walk, went quietly upstairs, and there what should he see in a cradle in the room above but Alicia! This was the first time the two met. They did not say much, but Cupid’s arrow went through them both from that minute. That’s all,” said Harry.
There was a silence, which at last I broke.
“And which chapter do you think we’d better put in?”
“That’s just what I was going to ask you,” said Harry.
“You see,” said I cautiously, “you’ve got rather a lot about that fair chap in yours, and he’s not in the plot.”
“Oh, he turns out somebody,” said Harry.
“Who?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“He’s not the hero, of course?” said I decisively; “he’s to be a mixture of both.”
“Oh, of course,” said Harry. “But, I say, don’t you think there’s rather too much about scenery in yours? There’s very little of that in Nicholas Nickleby, or poetry either.”