“A friend of mine is coming to the village,” she said to Mr. Gifted Hopkins.  “I want you to see him.  He is a genius,—­as some other young men are.” (This was obviously personal, and the youthful poet blushed with ingenuous delight.) “I have known him for ever so many years.  He and I are very good friends.”  The poet knew that this meant an exclusive relation between them; and though the fact was no surprise to him, his countenance fell a little.  The truth was, that his admiration was divided between Myrtle, who seemed to him divine and adorable, but distant, and Susan, who listened to his frequent poems, whom he was in the habit of seeing in artless domestic costumes, and whose attractions had been gaining upon him of late in the enforced absence of his divinity.

He retired pensive from this interview, and, flinging himself at his desk, attempted wreaking his thoughts upon expression, to borrow the language of one of his brother bards, in a passionate lyric which he began thus—­

“Another’s!

     “Another’s!  Oh the pang, the smart! 
          Fate owes to Love a deathless grudge,
     —­The barbed fang has rent a heart
          Which—­which

“judge—­judge,—­no, not judge.  Budge, drudge, fudge—­What a disgusting language English is!  Nothing fit to couple with such a word as grudge!  And the gush of an impassioned moment arrested in full flow, stopped short, corked up, for want of a paltry rhyme!

Judge,—­budge,—­drudge,—­nudge, oh!—­smudge,—­misery!—­fudge.  In vain,—­futile,—­no use,—­all up for to-night!”

While the poet, headed off in this way by the poverty of his native tongue, sought inspiration by retiring into the world of dreams,—­went to bed, in short, his more fortunate rival was just entering the village, where he was to make his brief residence at the house of Deacon Rumrill, who, having been a loser by the devouring element, was glad to receive a stray boarder when any such were looking about for quarters.

For some reason or other he was restless that evening, and took out a volume he had brought with him to beguile the earlier hours of the night.  It was too late when he arrived to disturb the quiet of Mrs. Hopkins’s household, and whatever may have been Clement’s impatience, he held it in check, and sat tranquilly until midnight over the pages of the book with which he had prudently provided himself.

“Hope you slept well last night,” said the old Deacon, when Mr. Clement came down to breakfast the next morning.

“Very well, thank you,—­that is, after I got to bed.  But I sat up pretty late reading my favorite Scott.  I am apt to forget how the hours pass when I have one of his books in my hand.”

The worthy Deacon looked at Mr. Clement with a sudden accession of interest.

“You couldn’t find better reading, young man.  Scott is my favorite author.  A great man.  I have got his likeness in a gilt-frame hanging up in the other room.  I have read him all through three times.”