" She took up a
paper and wrote:

Side
wide
right
might
knee
me.

"Then you fill them in," she continued. She held the pencil suspended in
the air. Her brow was puckered with thought. "Of course, it isn't
supposed to read as sensibly as prose. That is one of the greatest
differences between them. In poetry one must use imagination and poetic
license." Then she fell to work upon the paper and wrote steadily and
laboriously for some minutes. Her eye flashed with triumph. "Listen. Of
course this is mere rough work. I'll polish up what I write for the
'Mirror.'

"Imogen was by his side,
So they wandered far and wide,
The woods and vales stretched left and right,
He loved the girl with all his might,
So dropping on his bended knee
He cried, 'Oh, fair one, pity me.'"

A peal of laughter followed this closing line. It was a merry peal
without malice or guile. Hester turned. Erma was standing in the
doorway.

"Oh, but that is rich! He dropped on his bended knee. Could he get on
his knee if it wasn't bended?" She laughed aloud.

"You are so literal!" cried Hester with dignity. "In poetry, one is
allowed--"

"Poetry," another merry laugh. "Is that poetry? Take it to Doctor
Weldon's classes and let her put her seal of approval on it."

Erma had made her way to the door. With a mock courtesy and a sweep of
her skirts, she vanished. But as she went down the corridor, the girls
in Sixty-two caught the echo of her laugh and her song, "And dropping on
his bended knee."

Miss Bucher was a lady who arose to the occasion. She did not give way
to merriment. Her face was colorless and serene.

"I understand fully, Miss Alden, the point you wish to make. Miss Thomas
has no literary appreciation." She paused. There is but one thing worse
in the world than adverse just criticism, and that is praise so faint
that it is damaging. Miss Bucher paused as though to weigh her words.
Then she spoke: "Miss Thomas means well enough, but--well, nature has
not gifted us all in the same way."

It was fair enough, or seemed to be. Yet Hester felt that intangible
something to which one cannot respond, because one feels rather than
knows of its existence.

Miss Bucher arose. She was not given to furbelows. Each line of her
attire accentuated her angles and height.

"I will go now. I am glad you will help me. Could you have your poem or
whatever you decide upon ready by Monday?"

"I sha