Elkanah Madden should never have entered the medical profession; mere humanitarianism had prompted the choice in his dreamy youth; he became an empiric, nothing more.

'Our poet,' said the doctor; Clevedon was chiefly interesting to him for its literary associations.

Tennyson he worshipped; he never passed Coleridge's cottage without bowing in spirit.

From the contact of coarse actualities his nature shrank.
When he and Alice returned from their walk it was the hour of family tea.

A guest was present this afternoon; the eight persons who sat down to table were as many as the little parlour could comfortably contain.
Of the sisters, next in age to Alice came Virginia, a pretty but delicate girl of seventeen.