“Well,” said Sewell, with resignation; and suspecting that his wife was too much piqued or hurt by his former concealment to ask what he now meant to do about Barker, he added: “I'm going to take him round to a publisher and let him convince himself that there's no hope for him in a literary way.” “David!” cried his wife; and now she left off adjusting the shams, and erecting herself looked at him across the bed, “You don't intend to do anything so cruel.” “Cruel?” “Yes! Why should you go and waste any publisher's time by getting him to look at such rubbish? Why should you expose the poor fellow to the mortification of a perfectly needless refusal? Do you want to shirk the responsibility--to put it on some one else?” “No; you know I don't.” “Well, then, tell him yourself that it won't do.” “I have told him.” “What does he say?” “He doesn't say anything. I can't make out whether he believes me or not.” “Very well, then; you've done your duty, at any rate.” Mrs. Sewell could not forbear saying also, “If you'd done it at first, David, there wouldn't have been any of this trouble.” “That's true,” owned her husband, so very humbly that her heart smote her. “Well, go down and tell him he must stay to dinner, and then try to get rid of him the best way you can. Your time is really too precious, David, to be wasted in this way. You _must_ get rid of him, somehow.” Sewell went back to his guest in the reception-room, who seemed to have remained as immovably in his chair as if he had been a sitting statue of himself. He did not move when Sewell entered. “On second thoughts,” said the minister, “I believe I will not ask you to go to a publisher with me, as I had intended; it would expose you to unnecessary mortification, and it would be, from my point of view, an unjustifiable intrusion upon very busy people. I must ask you to take my word for it that no publisher would bring out your poem, and it never would pay you a cent if he did.” The boy remained silent as before, and Sewell had no means of knowing whether it was from silent conviction or from mulish obstinacy. “Mrs. Sewell will be down presently. She wished me to ask you to stay to dinner. We have an early dinner, and there will be time enough after that for you to look about the city.” “I shouldn't like to put you out,” said Barker.