It is not likely, however, that Minola would have been quite so much delighted if she could have known all the feelings that her generous, improvident patronage had awakened in the poet's breast. For Mr. Blanchet knew women well, he thought; and he did not believe that mere kindness alone could have impelled Minola to such an act of bounty. Nor, making every needful allowance for the friendship between Miss Grey and his sister, did he find in that a sufficing explanation of Minola's liberality. He set himself to think over the whole matter coolly and impartially, and he could come to no other conclusion than that Miss Grey admired him. He was a handsome fellow, as he knew very well, and tall, and romantic in appearance: what could be more natural than that a poetic young woman should fall in love with him? He felt sure that he had fallen in deepest love with her, but it is doubtful whether he was yet in a condition to analyze his own excited feelings very clearly. It is certain that he was madly in love with his poems, with their gorgeous first edition, with the pride and the prospect of the whole affair; and of course likewise in love with the patroness to whom he was indebted for so much of a strange delight. But how much was love of himself and how much of Minola, he did not take time to consider. There was an artistic and literary association to which Blanchet belonged, and amid which he passed most of his nights. It was not exactly a club, for it had neither definite rules nor even a distinct habitation. It was a little sect rather than a club. It was an association of men who believed each in himself, and all, at least for the present, in each other. Their essential condition of existence was scorn of the world's ways, politics, and theories of art. They held that man himself was a poor creature, unworthy of the artist's serious consideration. All that related to the well-being of that wretched animal in the way of political government they looked down upon with mere contempt. The science which professed to concern itself about his health, the social philosophy which would take any account of his moral improvement, were alike ridiculous in the eyes of this aesthetic school. If, however, any uninitiated person should imagine that in setting up art as the only serious business of life they were likely to accept any common definition of art, he would find himself as open to their scorn as if he had tried to improve a bad law or subscribed to the funds of some religious organization. Art with them was their own art. The enlightened parson, Thwackum, in "Tom Jones," observes that "When I mention religion I mean of course the Christian religion, and when I speak of the Protestant religion I mean the religion of the Church of England." It was in this spirit that the confraternity to which Mr. Blanchet belonged defined art. They only meant their own particular sect; out of that there was no salvation. Art, it is said, hath no