a girl then. I'll be grown-up. _Do_ let me come!"

"We'll see. Don't bother."

"Well! Show me the poem," she said, for she already had the instinct to
see that it pleased him and interested him much more to show her what he
was doing at present than to make promises and plans about her future.

They went and sat on the delightful wide-cushioned window-seat. Clifford
pulled out of his pocket a crumpled paper, covered with pencil marks. He
curled himself up, and Cissy curled herself up beside him and looked
over his shoulder.

He began: "I'm afraid this one's no use--no earthly---- I say, Cissy,
take your hair out of my eyes."

She shook it back and sat a little farther off, with her eyes and mouth
open as he read in a rather gruff voice:

"Sonnet."

"What's a sonnet, Clifford?"

He was rather baffled. "This is."

He went on:

"'_The day when first I saw
Her standing by the door,
I was taken by surprise
By her pretty blue eyes,
And then I thought her hair
So very fair
That I felt inclined to sing
About Mrs. Pickering._'"

"Lovely! How beautiful!" exclaimed Cissy, like a true woman. "But Mrs.
Pickering! Fancy! Does it mean mummy?"

"Why, yes. As a matter of fact it certainly _does_."

"Oh, Clifford! _How_ clever! How splendid! But mustn't she know it?"

"Oh no. I'd rather not. At any rate, not now."

"I wish it was to me!" exclaimed the child. "Then you needn't be so shy
about it. Why don't you change it to me? Look here--like this. Say:

"'_I felt inclined to sing
About Cissy Pickering._'

Cissy instead of _Mrs._!"

"Oh no, my dear. That wouldn't do at all. It isn't done. You can't alter
a sonnet to another person. If it came to that I'd sooner write one to
you as well, some time or another, when you're older."

"Oh, _do_, _dear_ Cliff! I _should_ love it."

"All right. Perhaps I will some day. But, you see, just now I want to do
the one about _her_."

"It's very nice and polite of you," she said in a doubting voice. "But
you said you'd done some more."

"Rather. So I have. You mustn't think it's cheek, you know, if I call
your mother by her Christian name in the poetry. It's only for the
rhyme."

Blushing and apologetically he read aloud in his gruff, shy voice:

"'_Geraldine, Geraldine,
She has the nicest face I have ever seen,
She did not say
Until the other day
That I mi