"
"Hat!--my hat?" replied the other gentleman. "Oh, to be sure! I had
quite forgotten. Sir, I am very much obliged to you. My hat might have
gone to the devil, I believe, I was so delightfully occupied. Such a
thing never happened to me before, for I am very hard indeed to please;
but I was reading, sir; I was reading. Accept my thanks, sir; and I
suppose I must leave off."
"I thought that I heard a voice," said Frank, growing bold with fear
that he should know no more, for the other was closing his book with
great care, and committing it to a pouch buckled over his shoulder; "and
I fear that I broke in upon a pleasant moment. Perhaps I should have
pleased you better if I had left this hat to drown."
"I seem ungrateful," the stranger answered, with a sweet but melancholy
smile, as he donned his hat and then lifted it gracefully to salute its
rescuer; "but it is only because I have been carried far away from all
thoughts of self, by the power of a much larger mind. Such a thing may
have occurred to you, sir, though it happens very seldom in one life. If
so, you will know how to forgive me."
"I scarcely dare ask--or rather I would say"--stammered the anxious
poet--"that I cannot expect you to tell me the name of the fortunate
writer who has moved you so."
"Would to Heaven that I could!" exclaimed the other. "But this great
poet has withheld his name--all great poets are always modest--but it
cannot long remain unknown.
Pages:
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354