d them back. Miss Delia was thoroughly
distressed. She put aside her own serious misgivings.

"But it must be," she argued eagerly, "or they wouldn't have printed
it."

Lucyet shook her head as she forced herself to eat a morsel of bread.
How unconvincing sounded the argument from another's lips! and yet she
knew now that secretly it had carried with it more weight than she had
realized. Miss Delia glanced apprehensively at the folded paper as it
lay on the table. She herself was disappointed, deeply disappointed; she
had expected much, and this,--why, this was, most of it, just what any
one could find out for herself. But she must say something more.
Lucyet's patient silence as she went on with her dinner, never raising
the eyes which had so shone when she first spoke, demanded speech from
her more urgently than louder claims.

"I suppose I thought perhaps there would be more about--about
misfortune, and scattered leaves, and dells,"--poor Miss Delia smiled
deprecatingly, while she felt wildly about for more tangible
reminiscences of her favorite poets, that she might respond to the
unuttered questioning of Lucyet,--"and"--she dropped her eyes--"lovers."

"I don't know anything about dells and lovers," said Lucyet, simply;
"how should I?"

Miss Delia started a little. It had never occurred to her that one must
know about things personally in order to write poetry about them. If it
had, she would never have dreamed of mentioning lovers.

"No, of course not," she said hastily; "but writing about a thing isn't
like knowing about it."

Lucyet was not experienced enough to detect any fallacy in this, and she
dumbly acquiesced.

"You have in all the grass and trees and--and such things as you have
in--very nicely, I'm sure," went on Miss Delia; "only next time"--and
she smiled brightly--"next time you must put in what we don't see every
day--like islands and reefs and such things. I know you could write a
beautiful poem about a reef--a coral reef."

Lucyet tried to smile hopefully in return, but the attempt was a
failure. She had finished her dinner, and she longed to get away; she
was so hurt that she must be alone to see how it was to be borne. She
helped Miss Delia clear the table and wash the dishes, almost in
silence. Two or three times they exchanged words on indifferent
subjects; Miss Delia asked who had had letters, and Lucyet told her, but
it was hard work for both. When it was over, Lucyet paused in the