s wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.'

Only I should say in this case it was from the wing of an angel."

"Mrs. Barclay, you are too poetical for an ox cart," said Lois,
laughing. "If we began to be poetical, I am afraid the repose would be
troubled."

"'Twont du Poetry no harm to go in an ox cart," remarked here the ox
driver.

"I agree with you, sir," said Mrs. Barclay. "Poetry would not be Poetry
if she could not ride anywhere. But why should she trouble repose.
Lois?"

"Yes," added Mr. Lenox; "I was about to ask that question. I thought
poetry was always soothing. Or that the ladies at least think so."

"I like it well enough," said Lois, "but I think it is apt to be
melancholy. Except in hymns."

"_Except_ hymns!" said Mrs. Lenox. "I thought hymns were always sad.
They deal so much with death and the grave."

"And the resurrection!" said Lois.

"They always make _me_ gloomy," the lady went on. "The resurrection! do
you call that a lively subject?"

"Depends on how you look at it, I suppose," said her husband. "But,
Miss Lothrop, I cannot recover from my surprise at your assertion
respecting non-religious poetry."

Lois left that statement alone. She did not care whether he recovered
or not. Mr. Lenox, however, was curious.

"I wish you would show me on what your opinion is founded," he went on
pleasantly.

"Yes, Lois, justify yourself," said Mrs. Barclay.

"I could not do that without making quotations, Mrs. Barclay, and I am
afraid I cannot remember enough. Besides, it would hardly be
interesting."

"To me it would," said Mrs. Barclay. "Where could one have a better
time? The oxen go so comfortably, and leisure is so graciously
abundant."

"Pray go on, Miss Lothrop!" Mr. Lenox urged.

"And then I hope you'll go on and prove hymns lively," added his wife.

The conversation which followed was long enough to have a chapter to
itself; and so may be comfortably skipped by any who are so inclined.

CHAPTER XXX.

POETRY.

"Perhaps you will none of you agree with me," Lois said; "and I do not
know much poetry; but there seems to me to run an undertone of lament
and weariness through most of what I know. Now take the 'Death of the
Flowers,'--that you were reading yesterday, Mrs. Barclay--

'The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,
And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.'

That is the tone I mean; a