"
Throughout the winter Hector wrote steadily every night, and every night
Annie sat by his side and embroidered--though her embroidery was not
_all_ for other people. Many a time in after years did their
thoughts go back to that period as the type of the happy life they were
having together.
The next time Hector went to see Mr. Gillespie, that gentleman suggested
that he should give a course of lectures to ladies upon English Poetry,
beginning with the Anglo-Saxon poets, of whom Gillespie said he knew
nothing, but would be glad to learn a great deal. He knew also, he said,
some ladies in the neighborhood willing to pay a guinea each for a
course of, say, half-a-dozen such lectures. They would not cost Hector
much time to prepare, and would at once bring in a little money.
Coleridge himself, he suggested, had done that kind of thing.
"Yes," said Hector, "but he was Coleridge. I have nothing to say worth
saying."
"Leave your hearers to judge of that," returned Gillespie. "Do your
best, and take your chance. I promise you two pupils at least not
over-critical--my wife and myself. It is amazing how little those even
who imagine they love it know about English poetry."
"But where should I find a room?" Hector still objected.
"Would not this drawing room do?" asked his friend.
"Splendidly!" answered Hector. "But what will Mrs. Gillespie say to it?"
"She and I are generally of one mind--about people, at least."
"Then I will go home at once and set about finding what to say.
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