"
"Will you give me a copy of it?"
"With all my heart. It has never been in print."
"Then your star reminds me of that quaint simile of Henry Vaughan,
'If a star were confined into a tomb,
Her captive flames must needs burn there;
But when the hand that locked her up gives room,
She'll shine through all the sphere.'"
"Ah yes; I know the poem. That is about the worst verse in it, though."
"Quite true."
"What a number of verses you know!"
"They stick to me somehow."
"Is the sonnet your own?"
"My dear fellow, how could I speak in praise of it as I do, if it were
my own? I would say 'I wish it were!' only that would be worse
selfishness than coveting a man's purse. No. It is not mine."
"Well, will you go on with your story--if you will yet oblige me."
"I will. But I fear you will think it strange that I should be so
communicative to one whose friendship I have so lately gained."
"I believe there is a fate in such things," I answered.
"Well, I yield to it--if I do not weary you?"
"Go on. There is positively not the least danger of that."
"Well, it was not to hell I was really sent, but to school--and that not
a fashionable boarding, or expensive public school, but a day-school
like a Scotch parish school--to learn the conditions and ways and
thoughts of my brothers and sisters.
"I soon got over the disgust I felt at the coarseness of the men I met.
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