Hawkehurst. And then these foolish
lovers kissed each other, as William Lee and his wife may have embraced
after the penniless young student had perfected his invention of the
stocking-frame.
"Forty pounds!" exclaimed Miss Halliday, "all won by your pen, and your
poor fingers, and your poor, poor head! How it must ache after a long
day's work! How clever you must be, Valentine!"
"Yes, dear; amazingly clever. Clever enough to know that you are the
dearest girl in Christendom."
"Don't talk nonsense, sir! You are not clever enough to have the
privilege of doing that yet awhile. I mean, how learned you must be to
know such lots of things, all about Erasmus, and Galileo, and--"
"No, my darling, not Erasmus and Galileo. I knew all about Erasmus last
week; but I am working at my paper on Galileo now, an exhaustive review
of all the books that were ever written on the subject, in ten pages. I
don't ask other people to remember what I write, you know, my dear, and I
don't pledge myself to remember it. That sort of thing won't keep. There
is a kind of sediment, no doubt, in one's note-book; but the
effervescence of that vintage goes off rather quickly."
"I only know that you are a very clever person, and that one obtains an
immensity of information from your writings," said Charlotte.
"Yes, dearest, there is a kind of wine that must be made into negus for
such pretty little topers as you--the 'Wine of Cyprus,' as Mrs.
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