ing, for I wouldn't see the meaning of this at all, saving just to mention my-"

"I wouldn't even mention that-I

would leave people to think just what they like."

"Very well, Willie-whatever you please."

"Yes, I would leave them to guess for themselves. Unless you liked to say"Danby had moved towards the door, and the last words were flung out care'lessly from the step-"you had come to keep my house."

"Quite right, Willie. I'll say that to be sure. I'll give it out that I'm your housekeeper."

She spoke with an even intonation, more quietly than usual. Danby feeling that the matter was a little delicate, heard her answer with relief.

"Well, just for the present, he said, carelessly, "till we have had time to look round us. Good-bye, mother; take care of yourself."

"No fear, darling," she answered, "no "fear," and Danby walked away, whist'ling.

As soon as the sound of his steps had passed, Mrs. Danby flung out her hands and cast her eyes upward, in a gesture of adjuration, almost of imprecation.

"He is ashamed of me," she said; "my Willie is ashamed of me;" and sank into a chair, sobbing aloud. Then she pressed her forehead hard, and said, with slow, deliberate articulation, as though to convince herself by testimony from without of something hard to be received or grasped, "My Willieis ashamed-of his mother."

The words died away; her hands sank upon her lap; and for many minutes she sat with fixed eyes that saw nothing, motionless as a stone.

Alas, how easy some shameful deeds are made to us! What gentle slopes lead our deceptions on? Often, ere we lift a finger or breathe a word, our

very wish rides forth, crying before us, "Prepare the way; make sin's rough places smooth."

Before William had walked a hundred yards he chanced upon Amy Finch, high placed by many as Kirkholm's chief authority on other people's business.

"Why, Mr. Danby," Amy said, "I hear you have a new housekeeper come."

"Yes," he answered, taken at unawares, "and I think she will do very well."

No further announcement was needed. Six consecutive advertisements would have secured a less piercing publicity.

Danby's intention was, as soon as his morning round had been performed, to call at Mrs. Whitworth's and begin his revelation. By easy degrees he would prepare his love for the reception, first moral, then physical, of Mrs. Danby.

Confused and unhappy, compassed by uneasy visions of rocks and shoals ahead, William worked through his heavy morning duties, and then, in fulfilment of his purpose, set his face towards Whitethorn Lodge.

But before half the way was accomplished, behold! a voice behind him! He turned, flushing with pleasure, for it was the voice.

"Well, Mr. Danby," said Dora, "what dark secret are you revolving now?" "Secret?" he answered, quickly; “why do you say that?"

"Dear me!" she said, "we are very literal to-day. Pray don't scowl at me. Really, I have not discovered any guilty secret-it's only the new Irish housekeeper."

"Oh," he said, "is that all? How do you know she is-Irish?"

"Bedad," she answered, "tis aisy knowing that same. Isn't meself just afther shpaking to her? Oh, Mr. Danby, can't I do Irish gloriously?"

So the feet of William sank deep and deeper into the slough. In a little while the sucking lips had risen so high that struggling seemed hopeless. Selfextrication was impossible. He must wait for Luck's kind hand. He was very miserable. His work suffered. His health suffered. He grew peevish and hypochondriac. He thought about little but himself and his love, and the unworthy behavior of Fate.

He did not notice anything about his mother-except her untidiness and her vulgarity. And yet other things were noticeable enough-as, for example, her paleness, her loss of appetite, her drawn mouth and weary, sleepless eyes. She never left the house. She spoke to nobody but her son; and that in his present mood was not an all-satisfying exception.

One afternoon in March-a day of rushing clouds and gusty flutteringsWilliam ran hastily into his house. All that day, as it happened, he had not seen his mother. Except for their unpunctual punctuality his meals had been prepared as usual. But Mrs. Danby had remained invisible. There was nothing very remarkable in this. She had come to recognize, William fancied, his dislike of slipshod, for of late she had isolated more or less her extremest deshabilles, taking her meals at these times somewhere out of sight. Dashing in now he looked around for Mrs. Danby. She was not where that hour usually found her, blending belated washing-up with premature schemes for tea. William ran up to her little room and knocked.

"Mother," he said, in much excitement, "there are three ladies coming to tea: Mrs. Sedgwick, and Miss Amy Finch, and Miss Dora Whitworth. Do have things all right. I've brought three cakes and two dozen muffins, and biscuits and-"

"Oh, the poor fellow!" interrupted his mother's voice. "He has enough for a beseiged city."

"You will have things nice, won't you, mother?"

"And wouldn't I do credit to my own son? But I doubt the fire went out on me. No matter-no matter. Wait till I have the boots on to my feet, for I was very sick all this day."

"Yes, and your voice sounds queer. I wouldn't have asked them if I had thought; but you will manage somehow, won't you?"

"I will then. I will. Only leave me free, for I'd be nervous being watched."

William ran down, blew up the languishing kitchen fire, and set forth upon the tray of elegance his afternoon service. It consisted of a brown-ware teapot, two breakfast cups (one of them with a handle), two solid tea-cups, presented severally to "James" and "A good girl," a really generous slop-basin and a blue-paper bag of sugar.

A good fire was burning in the little study, and fortunately some of the smoke was going up the chimney. Desparing of accomplishing anything amid the complex litter of the table, William cleared a little space upon the harmonium where the tray might safely repose, whipped his old coat and slippers into the magazine (and general) heap in the corner, covering them decently with yesterday's Kirkholm Times, collected the straggling pipes and dropped them behind the books on his big shelf, and then he was ready to receive.

It was well, for a minute later there were steps on the ash-path. He went to the door and led the ladies hospitably in.

"I am afraid it is rather rough," he said, complacently, as he set chairs and a box. "But I know you won't mind." "It is delightful," said Mrs. Sedgwick, drawing her skirts very tight,

yet managing to keep her gaze upon the angle above the heap.

"How

"Dear me!" said William. quick you are! I never saw that spider before."

"He has come to do the honors to us," said Dora. "How interesting a bachelor's room is."

"Very," assented Mrs. Sedgwick, as with a glance she unearthed the sleeve of William's coat. "Might I just touch that picture-now it is straight." After a little while Dora's eye was caught by William's garden borders. "How beautiful they are," she said. "There is no flower dresses so well as a wallflower. There is such a restrained sumptuousness in that redbrown velvet."

"Come and pick some," William answered.

"May I?" she said, blushing exquisitely.

He clapped on his college cap and led the way out.

"I must," remarked Mrs. Sedgwick, as soon as their backs were turned; "meddling or not, I simply must. And rising she swooped upon the mantelshelf. "Look here, Amy, crumbs and tobacco and all the plagues of Egypt." "Not frogs?" inquired Amy.

"I don't know," answered Mrs. Sedgwick, scrubbing with an old glove and a paper-knife. "No, they like water; more likely pigs."

Meanwhile William and Dora attended to their branch of the business. It was a pleasant department, and its affairs were conducted in an old-fashioned, leisurely way.

"Are they not sweet?" said Dora, as she fastened some flowers in her pretty dress.

"Yes," said William, following the movements of her hands. "They are now."

"Now I should not wonder," Dora answered, "if that were a compliment."

Again her color came, and-really

there was no need; it was a becoming color-she stooped to hide it.

He, too, stooped, and, as she bent, her neck, with a little innocent frisk of hair curling over it a little tendril lighter than all the rest, a shining straggler from the dark-brown, bronzy coils-lay right under Danby's eyes.

It was irresistible. At least he did not resist it.

"My darling," he said, as he steadied the tremulous curl with his lips.

Dora rose swiftly to her height. “Mr. Danby," she said, "there is nothing between us yet and I don't think ... at least I don't know. There are many things to think of first."

...

not be

"Dora," he answered, "you are not mercenary, and you would afraid of a long engagement." "It is not I," she said; "I am afraid of nothing. But-"

"Dora," he broke in, catching her hand, "you love me then; you do love me?"

"Oh, pray question me no more," she said. "My mother . . . you know her views about family and connections. If you could . . . until ... hark! Amy is calling us."

...

Indeed she was. "Coming," cried Danby. "The stalks were dreadfully wiry. Now we have got enough."

William's mind was tossing among tumultuous thoughts. He knew that Dora loved him, and there was joy in that. He knew that without her mother's consent she would never be his-and there was dejection there. Would Mrs. Whitworth ever give her daughter to the son of the Widow Danby?

Plans shot through his brain like a shuttle. He must get his mother out of the way while the secret still held firm. He must invent a family history. He must marry Dora, and then . . . why, then let things take their chance. Was middle-class provincial pride to

put asunder two lives that God had joined together?

"I am afraid we must say good-bye," said Mrs. Sedgwick, as the truants reentered the study.

"Without tea?" said Danby. "Nonsense; I'll hurry it up."

He stepped across to the kitchen. "Do be quick," he said; the ladies declare they must go."

"In one minute," answered his mother. Her back was towards him, but again he noticed that strangeness in her voice. She is not well," he thought, with no keenness of feeling, as he returned to his three lady guests.

"Bachelor's tea," he said, "does not come quite so naturally as blue to skies and rose to ladies' cheeks. Halloa! who's been deranging my tea-table? That's the harmonium, don't you know?"

He turned to put away some music that had been laid upon the top of the instrument, and at that moment his mother entered.

"Set it here, please," he said, and turned to face Mrs. Danby.

Ah, what was wrong? The tray clattered like some mock orchestra of children; yes, and the steps of the bearer swayed and her face . . . Oh! her face. It was flushed-inflamed-and the eyes were bloodshot and steeped in a kind of haze.

"She is very ill," Danby thought, as he rose to take the wavering tray from his mother's hands. And then he felt something strange in the gaze of the visitors-the gaze that converged upon the advancing face.

And then a sickly waft passed through the room, and William understood.

At that instant the tray fell with a crash, and Mrs. Danby staggered against the table.

"Shocking," said Mrs. Sedgwick, gathering back her skirts from the be

laboring shower. "The woman is drunk."

Mrs. Danby put her hands across her face, then she let them drop, and looked at William.

Not a word did she utter, and yet the whole story was told. Through that swift telegraphy whereby hearts of one kin may, in great moments, touch, William received the truth.

Yes, his mother was drunk, and he had driven her to it. His shame of her had eaten into her soul. Abstinent all her life, unseduced, even untempted through the long years wherein her husband tried to drag her down, and even sober neighbors urged her to drink and forget, she had given way at last. If he had beaten her she would not have minded. A woman can put up with that. But there was one thing that she could not bear, and that was the thing that had come. Her son was ashamed of her. She was his housekeeper, not his mother.

Either the woman's eyes or something sadder and more divine said all this to the young man in one mere point of time.

After that glance Mrs. Danby's head sank forward, and she sobbed aloud. Alas! her very sobs were drunken.

"Mr. Danby," said Mrs. Sedgwick, rising to go, "why do you keep such a woman?"

William stepped forward and put his arm round the swaying form that rested precariously against the table.

"Why do I keep her?" he asked. "I'll tell you if you want to know. Because she is my mother."

There was a start and a rustle, but nobody spoke.

"If," William went on, "you want to see the meanest cur in Christendom, look at me. I drove her to this-my mother as sober a woman as God ever made-with my cursed cowardice and vulgarity." Then, laying his uead against the old woman's, he cried aloud,

The unsatisfactoriness of definitions of poetry arises usually from one or other of two causes. If the definition is that of a critic, it is the resultant of a long analytical process, and therefore not very intelligible apart from the process by which it has been arrived at; if it is the definition of a poet, it is certain to contain that element of poetry which it professes to explain. Nevertheless, the most helpful aperçus into poetry are those which the poets themselves have given us, and of them all none is more helpful than that inspired parenthesis in which Milton one day summed up its characteristics as "simple, sensuous and passionate."

We may presume that by his first epithet Milton intended that simplicity which is another name for sincerity. He meant that a poet must look at the world frankly and with open eyes; with the spirit, though with more than the wisdom, of a child. We sometimes express another side of the same truth by saying that poetry is "universal," meaning that it cares nothing for superficial and transient fashions, but is interested only "in man, in nature, and in human life," in their permanent

1 The tradition of this concreteness was not lost even in the eighteenth century. Poets, living in a time of abstract thought, and feeling under the necessity of handling abstractions which they mistook for universals, hit upon the device of personifying them, with the result that from the pages of Dodsley's Miscellany every faculty of the mind and every operation

elements. This first epithet seems to fix beyond dispute an indispensable quality of all poetry. If a writer is insincere, or if he is conventional and fashionable, we are sure, whatever his airs and graces, that he is no poet. By "sensuous" it is probable that Milton meant what, in more technical language, we should describe as "concrete." Poetry deals with things, and it deals with people; it sings of birds and flowers and stars; it sings of the wrath of Achilles, the wanderings of Ulysses and Æneas, the woes of King Edipus, the problems of Brutus and Hamlet; whatever be the thought or the emotion it is concerned with, it is concerned with them as operating on a particular occasion; it has no concern with the intellect or the emotions or the will in abstraction from this or that wise or passionate or wilful person.1 By his third epithet Milton, as most will agree, touched, or almost touched, the heart of the matter. We all conceive prose to be an adequate vehicle for our level feelings, but as soon as we are deeply moved and wish to express our emotion we instinctively turn to the poets.

of every science looks out at one with a capital letter, a fashion happily parodied in the famous line:

"Inoculation, heavenly maid, descend." Gray is not untouched with the malady, though, on the whole, he represents a reaction back to the richness of the concrete, the "pomp and prodigality" of Shakespeare and Milton.