But whenever Charlton tried to excite in her an enthusiasm similar to his own, he was completely foiled.  She shrunk from everything like self-denial or labor of any sort.  She was not adapted to it, she assured him.  And he who made fierce war on the uselessness of woman in general came to reconcile himself to the uselessness of woman in particular, to apologize for it, to justify it, to admire it.  Love is the mother of invention, and Charlton persuaded himself that it was quite becoming in such a woman as the most remarkably cultivated, refined, and intellectual Helen Minorkey, to shrink from the drudgery of life.  She was not intended for it.  Her susceptibilities were too keen, according to him, though Helen Minorkey’s susceptibilities were indeed of a very quiet sort.  I believe that Charlton, the sweeping radical, who thought, when thinking on general principles, that every human-creature should live wholly for every other human creature, actually addressed some “Lines to H.M.,” through the columns of the St. Paul Advertiser of that day, in which he promulgated the startling doctrine that a Being such as was the aforesaid H.M., could not be expected to come into contact with the hard realities of life.  She must content herself with being the Inspiration of the life of Another, who would work out plans that should inure to the good of man and the honor of the Being, who would inspire and sustain the Toiler.  The poem was considered very fine by H.M., though the thoughts were a little too obscure for the general public and the meter was not very smooth.  You have doubtless had occasion to notice that poems which deal with Beings and Inspirations are usually of very imperfect fluidity.

Charlton worked at surveying and such other employments as offered themselves, wrote poems to Helen Minorkey, and plotted and planned how he might break up little Katy’s engagement.  He plotted and planned sometimes with a breaking heart, for the more he saw of Smith Westcott, the more entirely detestable he seemed.  But he did not get much co-operation from Isabel Marlay.  If he resented any effort to make a match between him and “Cousin Isa,” she resented it ten times more vehemently, and all the more that she, in her unselfishness of spirit, admired sincerely the unselfishness of Charlton, and in her practical and unimaginative life felt drawn toward the idealist young man who planned and dreamed in a way quite wonderful to her.  All her woman’s pride made her resent the effort to marry her to a man in love with another, a man who had not sought her.

[Illustration:  MRS. PLAUSABY.]

“Albert is smart,” said Mrs. Plausaby to her significantly one day; “he would be just the man for you, Isa.”

“Why, Mrs. Plausaby, I heard you say yourself that his wife would have to do without silk dresses and new bonnets.  For my part, I don’t think much of that kind of smartness that can’t get a living.  I wouldn’t have a man like Mr. Charlton on any, terms.”