absolutely forget."

"My dear young lady, so many people call, and leave so many poems, and
each poem is so like the last, that really you must pardon me, but my
head gets confused."

"Taken with a kind of swimming, sir?" here burst in Poppy. "I suppose
it is a sort of Sarah case over again."

The editor stared rather fiercely at this unexpected interruption,
deigned no reply whatever to Poppy, and continued his conversation
with Jasmine.

"I am sorry that I have forgotten both you and your poem--it is,
doubtless, docketed with others to be returned in due course--I am
sorry, but of course I could not use it--did you expect me to? Why,
the name alone--an 'Ode to Adversity,' was quite sufficient to make me
decline it."

"But, but," said Jasmine, coloring crimson and very nearly crying, "I
was told by a lady who reads your paper that the name was just what
you like. She said that your paper was called by a melancholy name,
and of course you wanted melancholy subjects."

The editor smiled in a very bland, though disagreeable manner--"_The
Downfall_," he said; "we chose that title for political reasons." Here
he sounded a gong. "Jones," as an attendant came in, "look in
pigeon-hole D, and put into an envelope for this young lady some
verses entitled an 'Ode to Adversity.' Sorry I can do nothing more for
you this morning, Miss Mainwaring. Good morning--_good_ morning."

When the two girls got out on the landing Jasmine thrust her rejected
poem into Poppy's hand.

"Put it into your pocket, Poppy," she said, "and don't on any account
let me see it--I must try to forget it, or my courage will go.
Evidently, Poppy, names go by contraries. I wrote some dismal papers
on purpose for _The Downfall_; I will now offer them to a magazine
which has a cheerful title."

"Look there, Miss Jasmine," said Poppy, when they got into the street.
"Right there, facing us at the other side, is what I call a pleasant
magazine--it has lots of pictures, for see, it's pressed up to the
window wide open, and it's called _The Joy-bell_--I'm a great deal
more taken with that sound than with the sound of _The Downfall_."

"So am I, too," said Jasmine, the April cloud quickly leaving her
expressive face--"I'm so glad I have you with me, dear Poppy; I was
feeling so low just now that I should never have noticed the office of
_The Joy-bell_--it has a very nice, high-class sound, and I should say
was a more attractive magazine than even a shilli