announced a composition on "A Summer Day." The joy of it drove away
even the remembrance of the eighteen men and their allowance of pork.
Elizabeth seized a sheet of paper, and doubling up over the desk wrote
furiously.

Rosie sighed at the sight of her flying pen. There was no pleasure for
Rosie in writing essays. She had already written carefully and slowly,
"A summer day is a beautiful time, summer is a nice season," then she
stopped and enviously watched Elizabeth spattering ink. That young
poetess was reveling in birds and flowers and rain-showers and walks
through the woods, with the blue sky peeping at one through the green
branches.

She paused only to consult her dictionary. She was working in the list
of words culled from the morning address. She would show Miss Hillary
that if she hadn't manners, at least she had forethought. She was
compelled very reluctantly to discard some of the list, as they failed
to appear in the dictionary under their new arrangement of letters.
She sighed especially over "contumacious"; it was so beautifully long.
But there were plenty of others. "The flowers do not grow in a
disciplined way," she wrote--the word still innocent of a "c."--"The
birds have high aspirations. Their deportment is very nice, but it is
not always genteel." Here Elizabeth had a real inspiration. A
quotation from Shelley's "Skylark" came into her mind. John and
Charles Stuart had memorized it one evening, and the glorious rhythm of
it had sung itself into her soul. There were some things one could not
help learning. Then, too, as it was from the Fourth Reader, Elizabeth
felt that Miss Hillary would see that she was familiar with that book
and feel assured she was ready for it. So she wrote such stanzas as
she remembered perfectly, commencing:

"_Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,
All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass._"

There were many misspelled words, but the quotation was aptly inserted,
and she added the note that the skylark was so joyous he often acted in
an insanitary manner.

She was still writing swiftly when Miss Hillary said, "Fold papers."
Elizabeth had barely time to finish her second poetic contribution. It
was from her own pen this time, one verse of a long poem she had
written in secret evenings, after Mary had gone to sleep:

"_Oh beautiful summer thou art so fare,
With thy flou