that," retorted Dan, but he looked
rather foolish; "but we are only here for the day, after all, and I am
not going to spend it all in saying nursery rhymes. If we were going to
stay a week it would be different."

"That's all very well, but _I_ believe you don't know it," said Betty
softly but decisively.

Whereupon Dan in great wrath burst forth,--

"'It was on a merry time
When Jenny Wren was young,'" etc., etc.

When he had chanted three verses, they begged him to stop. When he had
reached the twelfth they all went on their knees to him and implored him
to stop; but no, on he went, and on and on to the very last line.
"Next time," he said, turning to Betty when he had reached the end,
"I hope you will believe me."

"If I don't I won't say so," remarked Betty softly, with a sigh of
relief; "but of course I can't make myself believe you if I don't."

"Oh, can't you?" said Dan. "You try once and see. Now then, Anna, your
turn."

"I don't know anything about robins," said Anna. "Mother thought
nursery rhymes were foolish. So do I."

"Oh no, you don't really," cried four voices in tones of mingled
amazement and disgust.

"Yes, I do. Why not?"

"What a pity," said Kitty softly. "I think they are beautiful. I am
glad my mother thought so too, But it need not be a nursery rhyme, Anna.
Don't you know,

"'Little bird with bosom red,
Welcome to my humble shed,'

"or any other?"

"Ye--es," said Anna doubtfully. "I had to learn that once at school,
but, somehow, I didn't think that it was about a robin."

"What did you think it was about?" asked Kitty.

"Oh, I don't know. I thought it was just poetry. I never think poetry
has any meaning in it. It seems to me such silly stuff, all about
nothing."

"I suppose even poetry must be about something," said Dan sarcastically.

"I don't think so," said Anna. She, the prize-winner of her class, was
not going to be snubbed by her cousins. "As long as the words rhyme, it
doesn't matter what the rest is like."

To Kitty that seemed neither the time nor the place to argue with Anna,
so she let the subject drop. "Now then, Betty."

"I know so many," said Betty very anxiously, "that they seem to be all
jumbled up in my head, and I can't get one quite right. Let me see
now--"

"Do let me say mine while you are finking. Shall I?" pleaded Tony
eagerly.

"Little Robin Redbreast
Perched upon a tree,
Up went Pussy Cat