most of the poetry with
which I am familiar was written by dead men--that is, they weren't dead
when they wrote it, you know----"

"But died from the shock?"

"Now you're making fun of me," and Patty pouted, but as Patty's pout
was only a shade less charming than her smile, the live poet didn't
seem to resent it.

"Doubtless," he went on, "my work will not be really famous until after
I am dead, but some day I shall read them to you, and get your opinion
as to their hopes for a future."

"Oh, do read them to Patty," exclaimed Elise; "read them now. That's
the very thing for a stormy day!"

"Yes," Patty agreed; "if you have an Ode to Spring, or Lines on a
Blooming Daffodil, it would be fine to fling them in the teeth of this
storm."

"I see you're by way of being a wag, Miss Fairfield," Blaney returned,
good-naturedly. "But you've misapprehended my vein. I write poems,
not jingles."

"He does," averred Elise, earnestly. "Oh, Sam, do recite some--won't
you?"

"Not now, Lady fair. The setting isn't right, and the flowers are too
vivid."

Patty looked at the two large vases of scarlet carnations that stood on
the long, massive table in the middle of the room. She had thought
them a very pleasant and appropriate decoration for the snowy day, but
Blaney's glance at them was disdainful.

"He's an affected idiot!" she exclaimed to herself. "I don't like him
one bit!"

"Please like me," said the poet's soft voice, and Patty fairly jumped
to realise that he had read her thought in her face.

"Oh, I do!" she said, with mock fervour, and a slight flush of
embarrassment at her carelessness. "I like you heaps!"

"Don't be too set up over that," laughed Elise, "for Patty likes
everybody. She's the greatest little old liker you ever saw! Why, she
even likes people who don't like her."

"Are there such?" asked Blaney, properly.

"Yes, indeed," Patty declared; "and I can't help admiring their good
taste."

"I can't either," and Blaney spoke so seriously, that Patty almost
gasped.

"That isn't the answer," she smiled; "you should have contradicted me."

"No," the poet went on; "people who don't like you show real
discrimination. It is because you are so crude and unformed of soul."

But Patty was too wise to be caught with such chaff.

"Yes, that's it," she said, and nodded her curly head in assent.

"You say yes, because you don't know what I'm talking about. But it's
true. If you had your soul