‘But this ain’t what I call poetry,’ protested ’Liza, doubly wounded; ‘I never read anything like it. No poetry I ever heard of, or cared for, could be about common old women and idiot boys. I have read about outlaws and brigands, but they are out of the common as well as knights and troubadours; I must say for myself, I always preferred lords and ladies. As for lovers—and everybody knows most poetry is on the tender passion—’ simpered ’Liza, ‘who would stop to hear how an old married couple—like father and mother for instance, only a great deal worse when you come to low clanjamphrey of weavers and shepherds, get on or fall out? They are married for better, for worse, and must pull together, and there’s an end of them.’ ‘Don’t object to father just now,’ said ’Mily, ‘for if he had not fallen asleep—small blame to him—and snored so that I had to stuff my handkerchief into my mouth to keep myself from laughing right out every time he struck in, I should either have fallen asleep myself, or I could not have sat to the end of the drone. Call this cleverness and the good of a university education! Then I am glad I ain’t clever in the same way and that I have not even been away at a boarding-school, though I used to tease mother to send me from home—just for the name of the thing. I should have hated the learning and snapped my fingers in the schoolmistress’s face, I dare say, before I was done.’ These open objections were the echo of the prevailing sentiments of a large proportion of the audience. With regard to another section there was decorous respect for Wordsworth. Public opinion has changed since the criticism in the ‘Edinburgh Review’ was penned. Mrs. Hilliard was singular in her freedom of speech—most people pretended or tried hard to admire the poet, at least, while they strangled their tell-tale yawns and came to the conclusion that Oliver Constable was casting pearls before swine, the swine being the herd of tradespeople. Such hearers sat through Oliver’s lecture with a commendable appearance of attention. They knew what was due both to him and themselves, not to say to Wordsworth, in their relative positions. Only a fine sprinkling of choice sympathisers—turning up sometimes, like Miss Nancy Barr, when least expected—responded to the lecturer with all their hearts. But Catherine Hilliard was not in the last slender detachment any more than in the others. She did not go with the multitude. Neither could she be converted in an hour, though she realised that Oliver woke up to his office, burst some of his bonds, and ended by lecturing and speaking well. Certainly her lips fell a little apart in wistful appreciation, and delicate light and colour came into the subdued pallor of her face when he quoted Lo! five blue eggs lie gleaming there, and called the daisy A queen in crown of rubies drest;