"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. Browning called it. It is better for pretty girls to have the negus than to have nothing, or only weak home-brewed stuff that results in head-ache. My dearest, Fate has been very good to me, and I love my profession of letters. I am sure that of all educational processes there is none better than book-making; and the man who begins by making books must be a dolt, dunce, and dunderhead, if he do not end by writing them. So you may yet hope to see the morning that shall make your Valentine famous--for a fortnight. What man can hope to be famous for _more_ than a fortnight in such a railroad age as this?" During this halcyon period, in which Mr. Hawkehurst cultivated alternately the society of the Muses and his mistress, he saw little or nothing of George Sheldon. He had washed his hands of all share in the work of establishing Charlotte Halliday's claim to the Reverend John Haygarth's thousands. Indeed, since that interview in which Philip Sheldon had made so light of his stepdaughter's chances, and ratified his consent to her marriage with so humble a literary adventurer as himself, Mr. Hawkehurst had come to consider the Haygarthian inheritance as altogether a visionary business. If it were certain, or even probable, that Charlotte was to inherit a hundred thousand pounds, was it likely that Mr. Sheldon would encourage such an alliance? This question Mr. Hawkehurst always answered in the negative; and as days and weeks went by, and he heard no more of the Haygarth fortune, the idea of Charlotte's wealth became more and more shadowy. If there were anything doing in this matter, the two brothers were now working together, and George had no further need of Valentine's help.