ven then she hadn't said when she was
coming home."

"No, I expect she didn't," said Florence. "Mr. Dill, I was goin' to ask
you somep'n--it's kind of a queer kind of question for _me_ to ask, I
guess----" She paused. However, he did not interrupt her, seeming
preoccupied with gloom; whereupon Florence permitted herself a
deprecatory laugh, and continued, "It might be you'd answer yes, or it
might be you'd answer no; but anyway I was goin' to ask you--it's kind
of a funny question for _me_ to ask, I expect--but do you like poetry?"

"What?"

"Well, as things have turned out lately I guess it's kind of a funny
question, Mr. Dill, but do you like poetry?"

Noble's expression took on a coldness; for the word brought to his mind
a thought of Newland Sanders. "Do I like poetry?" said Noble. "No, I
don't."

Florence was momentarily discouraged; but at her age people usually
possess an invaluable faculty, which they lose later in life; and it is
a pity that they do lose it. At thirteen--especially the earlier months
of thirteen--they are still able to set aside and dismiss from their
minds almost any facts, no matter how audibly those facts have asked for
recognition. Children superbly allow themselves to become deaf, so to
speak, to undesirable circumstances; most frequently, of course, to
undesirable circumstances in the way of parental direction; so that
fathers, mothers, nurses, or governesses, not comprehending that this
mental deafness is for the time being entirely genuine, are liable to
hoarseness both of throat and temper. Thirteen is an age when the fading
of this gift or talent, one of the most beautiful of childhood, begins
to impair its helpfulness under the mistaken stress of discipline; but
Florence retained something of it. In a moment or two Noble Dill's
disaffection toward poetry was altogether as if it did not exist.

She coughed, inclined her head a little to one side, in her mother's
manner of politeness to callers, and, repeating her deprecatory laugh,
remarked: "Well, of course it's kind of a funny question for _me_ to
ask, of course."

"What is, Florence?" Noble inquired absently.

"Well--what I was saying was that 'course it's sort of queer _me_ askin'
if you liked poetry, of course, on account of my _writing_ poetry the
way I do now."

She looked up at him with a bright readiness to respond modestly to
whatever exclamation his wonder should dictate; but Noble's attention
had straggled agai