compliments.

'Have you not heard it?' said Rupert.

'Nonsense,' said Elizabeth.

'Why, I told you I had it in my hand,' said Rupert.

'And you have it still,' said Elizabeth; 'deliver it up, if you please;
it is the best of all, I can tell you, I had a cursory view of it.'

'No, no,' said Anne, who saw that her brother meant to teaze her, and
not to restore her verses; 'it was a very poor performance, it is much
better for my fame that it should never be seen. Only think what a
sublime notion the world will have of it, when it is said that even the
great Rupert himself is afraid to let it appear.'

Elizabeth made another attempt to regain the poem, but without effect,
and Anne recalled the attention of all to Helen's verses.

'What is a pennant?' said Elizabeth; 'I do not like words to be twisted
for the sake of the rhyme.'

A flag,' said Helen.

'I never doubted that you intended it for a flag,' said Elizabeth; 'but
what I complain of is, that it is a transmogrified pennon.'

'I believe a pennant to be a kind of flag,' said Helen.

'Let us refer the question to Papa,' said Anne, 'as soon as he has
finished that interminable conversation with Uncle Woodbourne.'

'Really, in spite of that slight blemish,' said Elizabeth, 'your poem
is the best we have heard, Helen.'

'And I can testify,' said Rupert, 'that the description of the
cart-horses at Dykelands is perfectly correct. But, Helen, is it true
that your friend Dicky has been seized with a fit of martial ardour
such as you describe?'

'Yes,' said Helen, 'he was very near enlisting, but it made his mother
very unhappy, and Mrs. Staunton--'

'Went down upon her knees to beseech him to remain, and let her roast
beef be food for him, not himself be food for powder,' said Rupert,
'never considering how glad the parish would be to get rid of him.'

'No,' said Helen, 'her powder became food for him; she made him
under-gamekeeper.'

'Excellent, Helen, you shine to-night,' cried Elizabeth; 'such a bit of
wit never was heard from you before.'

'Your poem is a proof that the best way of being original is to
describe things as you actually see them,' said Anne.

'Is not mine original? I do not think it was taken from any book,'
said Harriet, willing to pick up a little more praise.

'Not perhaps from any book,' said Elizabeth, with a very grave face;
'but I am afraid we must convict you of having borrowed from the mother
of books, Oral tradition.'