CHAPTER V.
It is to be presumed that the editor and Mr.Hamlin mutually kept to their tacit agreement to respect the impersonality of the poetess, for during the next three months the subject was seldom alluded to by either.

Yet in that period White Violet had sent two other contributions, and on each occasion Mr.Hamlin had insisted upon increasing the honorarium to the amount of his former gift.

In vain the editor pointed out the danger of this form of munificence; Mr.Hamlin retorted by saying that if he refused he would appeal to the proprietor, who certainly would not object to taking the credit of this liberality.
"As to the risks," concluded Jack, sententiously, "I'll take them; and as far as you're concerned, you certainly get the worth of your money." Indeed, if popularity was an indiction, this had become suddenly true.
For the poetess's third contribution, without changing its strong local color and individuality, had been an unexpected outburst of human passion--a love-song, that touched those to whom the subtler meditative graces of the poetess had been unknown.

Many people had listened to this impassioned but despairing cry from some remote and charmed solitude, who had never read poetry before, who translated it into their own limited vocabulary and more limited experience, and were inexpressibly affected to find that they, too, understood it; it was caught up and echoed by the feverish, adventurous, and unsatisfied life that filled that day and time.

Even the editor was surprised and frightened.