her
invitations, and, afterward, all the ladies coming down the
stiff-bordered path between the rows of hollyhocks. I'd love to draw
that picture if I could."

"Try it," urged the girls, so warmly that Joyce went up-stairs for her
drawing material. Betty watched her spread her paper on the library
table. "I believe that I could put that story into rhyme," she said,
after a few minutes of silent thought. "I can feel it humming in my
head."

"Oh, I didn't know that you could write poetry," exclaimed Lloyd. "Try
it now, and see what you can do. You write the poem, and Joyce will
illustrate it."

"I have to be by myself when I write, and I never know how long it will
take. It is like making butter. Sometimes it will come in a few minutes,
and sometimes I have to churn away for hours."

"Begin, anyhow!" insisted the girls, and in a few minutes Betty slipped
away to her room. At lunch-time they teased her to show them what she
had written, but she had only a few lines completed, and would not let
them see even the paper on which she had been scribbling. After lunch
the others went to their rooms to write letters and sleep awhile, but
she went back to her task. Joyce's picture did not turn out to her
satisfaction, and she tore it up, but Betty did her work over and over,
rewriting each line many times. When they were all dressed for dinner,
she did not appear. Finally Joyce went to see what kept her so long. She
found her bending over the paper, her cheeks flushed and her eyes
shining.

"It is done," she cried, writing the last word with a flourish, "but I
hadn't any idea it was so late. I thought I had been up here only a few
minutes. Some of the rhymes just _wouldn't_ twist into shape, but I
think they fit now."

"I'm going to take it down and show it to the girls, while you dress,"
cried Joyce, catching up the paper and running off with it. Although
Betty knew the time was short and she ought to hurry, she could not
resist stealing to the banister and leaning over to hear how it sounded
when her godmother, who was sitting in the lower hall with Lloyd and
Eugenia, read it aloud.

Jemima Araminta knew
Whenever company
Sat round the frugal board, they had
Plum marmalade for tea.

And spiced buns and toothsome tarts,
And divers sweets beside,
Were set to tempt the appetite
With good housewifely pride.

While walking out one day, it chanced
She fell a-