Long before he reached the end of it, Mary
had reached the poem.
"This is the one you mean, is it not?" she said, as soon as he
had finished--and read it again.
In his turn he did not speak till she had ended.
"That's it, miss," he said then; "I can't mistake it; for, the
minute you began, there was the old gentleman again with his
fiddle."
"And you know now what it says, don't you?" asked Mary.
"I heard nothing but the old gentleman," answered the musician.
Mary turned to Tom.
"Would you mind if I tried to show Mr. Jasper what I see in the
poem? He can't get a hold of it himself for the master's violin
in his ears; it won't let him think about it."
"I should like myself to hear what you have got to say about it,
Mary! Go on," said Tom.
Mary had now for a long time been a student of George Herbert;
and anything of a similar life-experience goes infinitely
further, to make one understand another, than any amount of
learning or art. Therefore, better than many a poet, Mary was
able to set forth the scope and design of this one. Herself at
the heart of the secret from which came all his utterance, she
could fit herself into most of the convolutions of the shell of
his expression, and was hence able also to make others perceive
in his verse not a little of what they were of themselves unable
to see.
"We shall have you lecturing at the Royal Institution yet, Mary,"
said Tom; "only it will be long before its members care for that
sort of antique.
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