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 *warded him with gladness. His heart beat violently.

"These rare kinds of genius, are they not barbarous?" he said, when the siren had ceased to cast her fingers.

"It is like children lisping," she said, half-turning her head, with a smile that curved her mouth entrancingly.

"Yes," said the young man, "poetry, romance, imagination are primitive; they belong to the child-*hood of nations, to the dawn of new worlds. What a divine inspiration these sweet-voiced children of nature who are bought out of due time, these unhappy Poles, Germans, and Frenchmen bring to their despair. Instead of sitting down in black coats to make their music into beef and mutton, they should be tripping through the glades piping to the birds, the trees, the bright air."

"This is a mad fellow, my angel," said Mr. Whitcomb indulgently, "but if you are gentle with him you may find him amusing."

"Mr. Northcote will amuse me enormously," said the lady, with a demure glance.

"Is it thus you rebuke his madness?" the young man asked.

"On the contrary, I don't think I have ever seen a sanity that is quite so perfect."

"Drop it," said the solicitor, roguishly pinching her ear. "Beware of dangerous turnings, my son. She is quite prepared to play George Sand to anybody's Alfred de Musset. She even does it to the greengrocer when he comes round with his barrow. I understand they discourse divinely together upon the subject of cabbages."