‘But I would _never_ call it so! Oh, Oswald, if there is anything in the world I care for---- Read me some, will you? Oh, do read me something. There is nothing,’ cried Cara, her lips trembling, her eyes expanding, her whole figure swelling with a sigh of feeling, ‘nothing I care for so much. I would rather know a poet than a king!’ Upon this Oswald laughed again, and looked at her with kind admiration. His eyes glowed, but with a brotherly light. ‘You are a little enthusiast,’ he said. ‘I called you _virtuosa_, and you are one in the old-fashioned sense, for that is wider than bric-à-brac. Yes; I sometimes think I might be a poet if I had anyone to inspire me, to keep me away from petty things. I am my mother’s son, Cara. I like to please everybody, and that is not in favour of the highest pursuits. I want a Muse. What if you were born to be my Muse? You shall see some of the things that are printed,’ he added; ‘not these. I am more sure of them when they have attained the reality of print.’ ‘Then they are printed?’ Cara’s eyes grew bigger and bigger, her interest grew to the height of enthusiasm. ‘How proud your mother must be, Oswald! I wonder she did not tell me. Does Edward write, too?’ ‘Edward!’ cried the other with disdain; ‘a clodhopper; a plodding, steady, respectable fellow, who has passed for the Civil Service. Poetry would be more sadly in his way than it is in mine. Oh, yes, it is sadly in mine. My mother does not know much; but instead of being enthusiastic she is annoyed with what she does know. That is the kind of thing one has to meet with in this world,’ he said, with a sigh over his own troubles. ‘Sometimes there is one like you--one more generous, more capable of appreciating the things that do not pay--with some people the things that pay are everything. And poetry does not pay, Cara.’ ‘I don’t like you even to say so.’ ‘Thanks for caring what I say; you have an eye for the ideal. I should like to be set on a pedestal, and to have something better expected from me. That is how men are made, Cara. To know that someone--a creature like yourself--expects something, thinks us capable of something. I am talking sentiment,’ he said, with a laugh; ‘decidedly you are the Muse I am looking for. On a good pedestal, with plenty of white muslin, there is not a Greek of them all would come up to you.’ ‘I don’t know what you mean, Oswald. Now you are laughing at me.’ ‘Well, let us laugh,’ he said, putting his papers into his pocket again. ‘Are you coming to my mother’s reception this afternoon? I hear you were there yesterday. What do you think of it? Was old Somerville there with his wig? He is the guardian angel; he comes to see that we all go on as we ought, and that no one goes too far. He does not approve of me. He writes to India about me that I will never be of much use in the world.’ ‘To India.’