It was Mr Palmer's design to send Frank abroad as soon as he
understood the home trade. It was thought it would be an advantage
to him to learn something of foreign manufacturing processes. Frank
had gladly agreed to go, but he was now rather in the mood for delay.
Mr Palmer conjectured a reason for it, and the conjecture was
confirmed when, after two or three more visits to Fenmarket,
perfectly causeless, so far as business was concerned, Frank asked
for the paternal sanction to his engagement with Madge. Consent was
willingly given, for Mr Palmer knew the family well; letters passed
between him and Mrs Hopgood, and it was arranged that Frank's visit
to Germany should be postponed till the summer. He was now
frequently at Fenmarket as Madge's accepted suitor, and, as the
spring advanced, their evenings were mostly spent by themselves out
of doors. One afternoon they went for a long walk, and on their
return they rested by a stile. Those were the days when Tennyson was
beginning to stir the hearts of the young people in England, and the
two little green volumes had just become a treasure in the Hopgood
household. Mr Palmer, senior, knew them well, and Frank, hearing his
father speak so enthusiastically about them, thought Madge would like
them, and had presented them to her. He had heard one or two read
aloud at home, and had looked at one or two himself, but had gone no
further. Madge, her mother, and her sister had read and re-read
them.
'Oh,' said Madge, 'for that Vale in Ida. Here in these fens how I
long for something that is not level! Oh, for the roar of "The long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravine
In cataract after cataract to the sea."
Go on with it, Frank.'
'I cannot.' 'But you know OEnone?'
'I cannot say I do. I began it--'
'Frank, how could you begin it and lay it down unfinished? Besides,
those lines are some of the first; you must remember "Behind the valley topmost Gargarus
Stands up and takes the morning."'
'No, I do not recollect, but I will learn them; learn them for your
sake.'
'I do not want you to learn them for my sake.'
'But I shall.' She had taken off her hat and his hand strayed to her neck. Her head
fell on his shoulder and she had forgotten his ignorance of OEnone.
Presently she awoke from her delicious trance and they moved
homewards in silence. Frank was a little uneasy.
'I do greatly admire Tennyson,' he said.