d within your hair--
(White rose, that spake of worth);
And one you placed upon your breast--
(Red rose, love's seal of birth).
You plucked another from its stem--
(Tea rose, that means for aye);
And one you gave--that bore for me
The thorns of memory."

"That's a crackerjack," said Sammy, admiringly.

"There are five more verses," said Ravenel, patiently sardonic. "One
naturally pauses at the end of each. Of course--"

"Oh, let's have the rest, old man," shouted Sammy, contritely, "I
didn't mean to cut you off. I'm not much of a poetry expert, you
know. I never saw a poem that didn't look like it ought to have
terminal facilities at the end of every verse. Reel off the rest of
it."

Ravenel sighed, and laid the magazine down. "All right," said Sammy,
cheerfully, "we'll have it next time. I'll be off now. Got a date at
five o'clock."

He took a last look at the shaded green garden and left, whistling in
an off key an untuneful air from a roofless farce comedy.

The next afternoon Ravenel, while polishing a ragged line of a new
sonnet, reclined by the window overlooking the besieged garden of
the unmercenary baron. Suddenly he sat up, spilling two rhymes and a
syllable or two.

Through the trees one window of the old mansion could be seen
clearly. In its window, draped in flowing white, leaned the angel of
all his dreams of romance and poesy. Young, fresh as a drop of dew,
graceful as a spray of clematis, conferring upon the garden hemmed
in by the roaring traffic the air of a princess's bower, beautiful
as any flower sung by poet--thus Ravenel saw her for the first time.
She lingered for a while, and then disappeared within, leaving a
few notes of a birdlike ripple of song to reach his entranced ears
through the rattle of cabs and the snarling of the electric cars.

Thus, as if to challenge the poet's flaunt at romance and to punish
him for his recreancy to the undying spirit of youth and beauty, this
vision had dawned upon him with a thrilling and accusive power. And
so metabolic was the power that in an instant the atoms of Ravenel's
entire world were redistributed. The laden drays that passed the
house in which she lived rumbled a deep double-bass to the tune of
love. The newsboys' shouts were the notes of singing birds; that
garden was the pleasance of the Capulets; the janitor was an ogre;
himself a knight, ready with sword, lance or lute.

Thus does romance