'You make it so unmistakable, Amy. What I mean is, that you are always regretting the difference between him and me. You lament that I can't write in that attractive way. Well, I lament it myself--for your sake. I wish I had Milvain's peculiar talent, so that I could get reputation and money. But I haven't, and there's an end of it. It irritates a man to be perpetually told of his disadvantages.'

'I will never mention Milvain's name again,' said Amy coldly.

'Now that's ridiculous, and you know it.'

'I feel the same about your irritation. I can't see that I have given any cause for it.'

'Then we'll talk no more of the matter.'

Reardon threw his manuscript aside and opened a book. Amy never asked him to resume his intention of reading what he had written.

However, the paper was accepted. It came out in The Wayside for March, and Reardon received seven pounds ten for it. By that time he had written another thing of the same gossipy kind, suggested by Pliny's Letters. The pleasant occupation did him good, but there was no possibility of pursuing this course. 'Margaret Home' would be published in April; he might get the five-and-twenty pounds contingent upon a certain sale, yet that could in no case be paid until the middle of the year, and long before then he would be penniless. His respite drew to an end.

But now he took counsel of no one; as far as it was possible he lived in solitude, never seeing those of his acquaintances who were outside the literary world, and seldom even his colleagues. Milvain was so busy that he had only been able to look in twice or thrice since Christmas, and Reardon nowadays never went to Jasper's lodgings.