deau_
I ever had indited to my humble self, and while I'm a bit set up about
it, I can't quite detach from Gershom's lines a vaguely obituarial
atmosphere which tends to depress me.

I can see that it may not be the best _rondeau_ in the world, but I'm
going to keep it until my bones are dust, for good old Gershom's sake.
And some day, when he marries the nice girl he deserves to marry, and
has a kiddy or two of his own, I'll shame his gray hairs by parading
it before his offspring! I have just been re-reading the lines, in
Gershom's copperplate script. They are as follows:

_To C. McK._

_On Returning Her Copy of the Golden Treasury_

This golden book, dear friend, wherein each line
Holds close a charm for knowing eyes to meet,
Holds doubly mystical and doubly sweet
An inner charm no language may define:

For o'er each page a woman's soul divine
Bent low a space for kindred souls to greet,
And here her eyes were lit with gladness fleet
Because of songs that graced with rare design
This book of thine!

And now I give back into Beauty's hand
Her borrowed songs, but I shall hold always
Secret and safe from every care's demand,
A flame of light to fill my emptier days,
That quieter fellowship, which made a shrine
This book of thine!
G. B.

_Tuesday the Fifth_

The weather is balmier, and just a tinge of green is creeping into the
tan of the foot-hill slopes. Spring is coming again.

I went shopping in the Hudson Bay Store yesterday and found it much
more metropolitan than I had expected. And I find I am three whole
laps behind in that steeplechase known as Style. But I got a raft of
things for Pauline Augusta, and a Boy Scout outfit for my laddie.

One of the few women I like in Calgary is Dinkie's--I mean
Elmer's--new school-teacher. Her name is Lossie Brown and she is an
earnest-eyed girl who's saving up to go to Europe some day and study
art. She's a trifle shy, and unmistakably moody, but her mind is as
bright as a new pin. And some bright morning, when the rose of
womanhood has really opened, she's going to wake up a howling beauty.
I love her, too, for the interest she has taken in my boy, whom she
reports as getting along much better than she had expected. So I have
aske