e,
Strong and young and free, a burst of the senses all astrife,
Each one fighting to be first,
While above, beyond them all,
Loud a woman's heart makes call."

"Now, fire ahead," said Eric, "get your stones ready. Mrs. Jerrold, pray
begin; let us put down this young parrot with her 'lusty, live wine.'"

"Her?" exclaimed Edith. "Him, you mean."

"Not a bit of it; a woman wrote that, didn't she?"

Eric was very confident. Norman agreed with him, and he glanced at Mae
to discover her opinion. There was a look of secret amusement in her
face, and a dim suspicion entered his mind, which decided him to watch
her closely.

"Well," said Mrs. Jerrold, "I will be lenient. You children may throw
all the stones. It is not poetry to my taste. There's no metre to it,
and I should certainly be sorry to think a woman wrote it."

"Why?" asked Mae, quickly, almost commandingly. Norman glanced at her.
There was a tiny rosebud on each cheek.

"Because," replied Mrs. Jerrold, "it is too--too what, Edith?"

"Physical, perhaps," suggested Edith.

"It is a satyr-like sort of writing," suggested Norman.

"I should advise this person," said Edith--

"To keep still?" interrupted Eric.

"No, to go to work; that is what he or she needs."

"That is odd advice," said Mae; "suppose she--or he--is young, doesn't
know what to do, is a traveler, like ourselves, for instance."

"There are plenty of benevolent schemes in Rome, I am sure," said Edith,
a trifle sanctimoniously.

"And there's study," said Albert, "art or history. Think what a chance
for studying them one has here. Yes, Edith is right--work or study, and
a general shutting up of the fancy is what this mind needs."

"I disagree with you entirely," said Norman with energy. "She needs
play, relaxation, freedom." Then he was sorry he had said it; Mae's eyes
sparkled so.

"She needs," said Eric, pushing back his chair, "to be married. She is
in love. That's what's the matter. Read those two last lines, Albert:

'While above, beyond them all,
Loud a woman's heart makes call.'

"Don't you see?"

"O, wise young man," laughed Edith. But Mae arose. The scarlet buds in
her cheeks flamed into full-blown roses. "There speaks the man," she
cried passionately, "and pray doesn't a woman's heart ever call for
anything but love--aren't life and liberty more than all the love in the
world? Oh!" and she stopped abruptly.

"Well, we have wasted more