But Hugh was not to be silenced; he stood up manfully, with his great square shoulders blocking up the light, beaming down on Olive's shrinking gravity like a gentle-hearted giant; he was one to make himself heard, this big, clumsy young man. In spite of his boyish face and loud voice, people were beginning to speak well of Hugh Marsden; his youthful vigour and energy were waking up northern lethargy and fighting northern prejudice. Was not the surpliced choir owing mainly to his persevering efforts? and were not the ranks of the Dissenters already thinned by that loud-voiced but persuasive eloquence of his? Olive absolutely cowered under it to-night. Hugh had no idea how his noisy vehemence was jarring on that desire for quiet, and a nice talk with Aunt Mildred, for which she was secretly longing; and yet she and Hugh were good friends. 'One can't help one's nature,' persisted Hugh, fumbling over the pages of one of the little green books with his big hands as he spoke. 'In the days of the primitive Church they had the gift of unknown tongues. I am sure much of our modern poetry needs interpretation.' 'Worse and worse. He will vote your "Songs of the Hearth" a mass of unintelligible rubbish directly.' 'You are too bad,' returned the young man with an honest blush; 'you will incense your sister against me. What I really mean is,' sitting down beside Olive and speaking so that Richard should not hear him, 'that poetry always seems to me more ornament than use. You cannot really have felt and experienced all you have described in that poem--"Coming Back," for example.' 'Hush, don't show it me,' returned Olive, hurriedly. 'I don't mind your saying this, but you do not know--the feeling comes, and then the words; these are thoughts too grand and deep for common forms of expression; they seem to flow of themselves into the measure you criticise. Oh! you do not understand----' 'No, but you can teach me to do so,' returned Hugh, quite gravely. He had laid aside his vehemence at the first sound of Olive's quiet voice; he had never lost his first impression of her,--he still regarded her with a sort of puzzled wonder and reverence. A poetess was not much in his line he told himself,--the only poetry he cared for was the Psalms, and perhaps Homer and Shakespeare. Yes, they were grand fellows, he thought; they could never see their like again. True, the 'Voices of the Hearth' were very beautiful, if he could only understand them. 'One cannot teach these things,' replied Olive, with her soft, serious smile. As she answered Hugh she felt almost sorry for him, that this beautiful gift had come to her, and that he could not understand--that he who revelled in the good things of this life should miss one of its sweetest comforts.