The Alien's dreams seemed like her own fancies, somehow; for they belonged to that bright _other_ world which she was never to see. How familiar the Alien was with that delicious region; and how lightly _he_ spoke of the hothouse flowers and diamonds, the ermine carpets and Arab steeds! She read the poems over and over again in the drowsy June weather, sitting in the shabby little common parlour when the afternoons were too hot for out-door rambles, and getting up now and then to look at her profile in the glass over the mantel-piece, and to wonder whether she was like any of those gorgeous but hollow-hearted creatures upon whom the Alien showered such torrents of melodious abuse. Who was the Alien? Isabel had asked Mr. Raymond that question, and had been a little crashed by the reply. The Alien was a Midlandshire squire, Mr. Raymond had told her; and the word 'squire' suggested nothing but a broad-shouldered, rosy-faced man, in a scarlet coat and top-boots. Surely no squire could have written those half-heartbroken, half-cynical verses, those deliciously scornful elegies upon the hollowness of lovely woman and things in general! Isabel had her own image of the writer--her own ideal poet, who rose in all his melancholy glory, and pushed the red-coated country squire out of her mind when she sat with the "Alien's Dreams" in her lap, or scribbled weak imitations of that gentleman's poetry upon the backs of old envelopes and other scraps of waste paper. Sometimes, when George had eaten his supper, Isabel would do him the favour of reading aloud one of the most spasmodic of the Alien's dreams. But when the Alien was most melodiously cynical, and the girl's voice tremulous with sudden exaltation of feeling, her eyes, wandering by chance to where her husband sat, would watch him yawning behind his glass of ale, or reckoning a patient's account on the square tips of his fingers. On one occasion poor George was terribly perplexed to behold his wife suddenly drop her book upon her lap and burst into tears. He could imagine no reason for her weeping, and he sat aghast, staring at her for some moments before he could utter any word of consolation. "You don't care for the poetry, George," she cried, with the sudden passion of a spoiled child. "Oh, why do you let me read to you, if you don't care for the poetry?" "But I do care for it, Izzie, dear," Mr. Gilbert murmured, soothingly,--"at least I like to hear you read, if it amuses _you_." Isabel flung the "Alien" into the remotest corner of the little parlour, and turned from her husband as if he had stung her. "You don't understand me," she said; "you don't understand me." "No, my dear Isabel," returned Mr. Gilbert, with dignity (for his common sense reasserted itself after the first shock of surprise); "I certainly do _not_ understand you when you give way to such temper as this without any visible cause."