While down in the town Linnet was thus engaged, high up in the hills Will Deverill sat alone by Mrs Palmer’s side on an outcrop of rock near the summit of the Lanser Kopf. Florian had gone off for a minute or two round the corner by the mountain indicator, with the giggling inarticulates. Mrs Palmer, pointing her moral with the ferrule of her parasol on the grass in front of her, was discoursing to Will earnestly of his work and his prospects. “I want to see you do something really great, Mr Deverill,” she said, with genuine fervour, looking deep into his eyes; “something larger in scale and more worthy of your genius—something that gives full scope to your dramatic element. I don’t like to see you frittering away your talents on these exquisite little lyrics—beautiful gems in their way, to be sure, but that way not the highest. I want to see you settled down for a long spell of hard work at some big undertaking—an epic, a play, a grand opera, a masterpiece. I know you could do it if only you took the time. You should go to some quiet place where there’s nothing to distract you, and make your mind up to work, to write something more lasting than even that lovely _Gwyn_, or that exquisite _Ossian_!” Will looked down and sighed. ’Tis pleasant to be appreciated by a beautiful woman. And every man thinks, if he had but the chance, he could show the world yet the sort of stuff that’s in him. “I only wish I could,” he answered, regretfully. “But I’ve my living to earn. That ties me down still to the treadmill of journalism. When my holiday’s over—the first for two years—I must get back once more, well content, to Fleet Street and drudgery.” Mrs Palmer sighed too. She felt his difficulty. Her parasol played more nervously on the grass than before. She answered nothing, but she thought a great deal. How small a matter for her to secure this young poet whom she admired so much, six months of leisure for an immortal work—and yet, how impossible! There was only one way, she knew that very well; and the first step towards that way must come, not from her, but from this modest Will Deverill. ’Twas a passing thought, half formed, or scarce half formed, in the pretty widow’s mind. But nothing came of it. As she paused, and sighed, and played trembling with her parasol, and doubted what to answer him, Florian came up once more with the giggling inarticulates, “Well, Mr Wood?” she said, looking up, just by way of saying something, for the pause was an awkward one. “Pardon me,” the mannikin of culture answered in his impressive way; “my name is Florian.” “But _I_ can’t call you so,” Mrs Palmer answered, recovering herself, with a merry little laugh. “It’s usual in Society,” Florian responded with truth. “Just ask Will Deverill.”