looking up to him as a poet and a child of genius. Greatly pleased was the poet and child of genius when Victor Heron asked him to come into his rooms and smoke a cigar before going to bed. "You don't sleep much or keep early hours, I dare say, Mr. Blanchet; literary men don't, I suppose; and I only sleep when I can't help it. Let us smoke and have a talk for an hour or two." "Night is my day," said Blanchet. "I don't think people who have minds can talk well in the hours before midnight. When I have to work in the day I sometimes close my shutters, light my gas, and fancy I am under the influences of night." "I got the way of sitting up half the night," said Victor simply, "from living in places where one had best sleep in the day; but I am sure if I were a poet, I should delight in the night for its own sake." There was something curious in the feeling of deference with which Heron regarded the young poet. He considered Blanchet as something not quite mortal, or at all events, masculine; something entitled to the homage one gives to a woman and the enthusiasm we feel to a spiritual teacher. Blanchet did not seem to him exactly like a man; rather like one of those creatures compounded of fire and dew whom we read of in legend and mythology. The feeling was not that of awe, because Blanchet was young and good-looking, and wore a dress coat and white tie, and it is impossible to have a feeling of awe for a man with a white tie. It was a feeling of delicate consideration and devotion. Had some rude person jostled against or otherwise insulted the poet as they passed along, Victor would have felt it his duty to interpose and resent the affront as promptly as if Minola Grey or Lucy Money were the object of the insult. To his unsophisticated colonial mind the poet was the sweet feminine voice of the literary grammar.