are budding betimes.  That is the joy of an artistic life—­you work, but it is amongst flowers.  Christie will be famous before he is thirty, and he is easy in his circumstances now:  he will never be more, never rich; he is too open-handed for that.  But I shall have years and years to toil and wait,” Harry concluded with a melancholy, humorous fall in his voice, half mocking at himself and half pathetic, and the same was his countenance.

All the more earnestly did Bessie brighten:  “You knew that, Harry, when you chose the law.  But if you work amongst bookworms and cobwebs, don’t you play in the sunshine?”

“Now and then, Bessie, but there will be less and less of that if I maintain my high endeavors.”

“You will, Harry, you must!  You will never be satisfied else.  But there is no sentiment in the law—­it is dreary, dreary.”

“No sentiment in the law?  It is a laborious calling, but many honorable men follow it; and are not the lawyers continually helping those to right who suffer wrong?”

“That is not the vulgar idea of them, is it?  But I believe it is what you will always strive to do, Harry.”  Bessie spoke with pretty eagerness.  She feared that she might have seemed to contemn Harry’s vocation, and she hastened to make amends.  Harry understood her perfectly, and had the impudence to laugh at her quite in his old boyish way.  A little confused—­also in the old way—­she ran on:  “I have seen the judges in their scarlet robes and huge white wigs on a hot July Sunday attending service in Norminster Cathedral.  I tried to attire you so, but my imagination failed.  I don’t believe you will ever be a judge, Harry.”

“That is a discouraging prediction, Bessie, if I am to be a lawyer.  I do a little in this way,” he said, handling a famous review that lay on the table.  “May I send it to you when there is a paper of mine in it?”

“Oh yes; I should like it so much!  I should be so interested!” said Bessie fervently.  “We take the Times at Abbotsmead, and Blackwood and the old Quarterly, but not that.  I have seen it at my uncle Laurence’s house, and Lady Latimer has it.  I saw it in the Fairfield drawing-room last night:  is there anything of yours here, Harry?”

“Yes, this is mine—­a rather dry nut for you.  But occasionally I contribute a light-literature article.”

“Oh, I must tell my lady.  She and Mr. Logger were differing over that very paper, and ascribing it to half a dozen great, wise people in turn.”

Harry laughed:  “Pray, then, don’t confess for me.  The arguments will lose half their force if she learn what a tyro wrote it.”

“No, no, she will be delighted to know—­she adores talent.  Besides, Mr. Logger told her that the cleverest articles were written by sprightly young men fresh from college.  Have you paid your respects to her yet?  She told me with a significant little moue that you had condescended to call upon her at Easter.”