Clara Hopgood

It was Mr Palmer's design to send Frank abroad as soon as he

understood the home trade. It was thought it would be an advantage

to him to learn something of foreign manufacturing processes. Frank

had gladly agreed to go, but he was now rather in the mood for delay.

Mr Palmer conjectured a reason for it, and the conjecture was

confirmed when, after two or three more visits to Fenmarket,

perfectly causeless, so far as business was concerned, Frank asked

for the paternal sanction to his engagement with Madge. Consent was

willingly given, for Mr Palmer knew the family well; letters passed

between him and Mrs Hopgood, and it was arranged that Frank's visit

to Germany should be postponed till the summer. He was now

frequently at Fenmarket as Madge's accepted suitor, and, as the

spring advanced, their evenings were mostly spent by themselves out

of doors. One afternoon they went for a long walk, and on their

return they rested by a stile. Those were the days when Tennyson was

beginning to stir the hearts of the young people in England, and the

two little green volumes had just become a treasure in the Hopgood

household. Mr Palmer, senior, knew them well, and Frank, hearing his

father speak so enthusiastically about them, thought Madge would like

them, and had presented them to her. He had heard one or two read

aloud at home, and had looked at one or two himself, but had gone no

further. Madge, her mother, and her sister had read and re-read

them.

'Oh,' said Madge, 'for that Vale in Ida. Here in these fens how I

long for something that is not level! Oh, for the roar of "The long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravine

In cataract after cataract to the sea."

Go on with it, Frank.'

'I cannot.' 'But you know OEnone?'

'I cannot say I do. I began it--'

'Frank, how could you begin it and lay it down unfinished? Besides,

those lines are some of the first; you must remember "Behind the valley topmost Gargarus

Stands up and takes the morning."'

'No, I do not recollect, but I will learn them; learn them for your

sake.'

'I do not want you to learn them for my sake.'

'But I shall.' She had taken off her hat and his hand strayed to her neck. Her head

fell on his shoulder and she had forgotten his ignorance of OEnone.

Presently she awoke from her delicious trance and they moved

homewards in silence. Frank was a little uneasy.

'I do greatly admire Tennyson,' he said.