"I did not," said Mr. Thomas, "bring you the effusions of an
acknowledged poet, but I think that the girl has fine ability, which
needs encouragement and recognition."

But his friends could not see it; they were very charry of their
admiration, lest their judgment should be found at fault, and then it
was so much easier to criticise than it was to heartily admire; and they
knew it seemed safer to show their superior intelligence by dwelling on
the defects, which would necessarily have an amount of crudeness in them
than to look beneath the defects for the suggestions of beauty, strength
and grace which Mr. Thomas saw in these unripe, but promising effusions.
It seemed perfectly absurd with the surroundings of Tennis Court to
expect anything grand or beautiful [to] develop in its midst; but with
Annette, poetry was a passion born in her soul, and it was as natural
for her to speak in tropes and figures as it was for others to talk in
plain, common prose. Mr. Thomas called her "our inveterate poet," and
encouraged her, but the literary aspirants took scarcely any interest in
the girl whom they left to struggle on as best she might. In her own
home she was doomed to meet with lack of encouragement and appreciation
from her relatives and grandmother's friends. One day her aunt, Eliza
Hanson, was spending the day with her mother, and Annette showed her
some of her verses and said to her, "that is one of my best pieces."

"Oh, you have a number of best pieces," said her aunt, carelessly. "Can
you cook a beefsteak?"

"I suppose I could if I tried."

"Well, you had better try than to be trying to string verses together.
You seem to think that there must be something very great about you. I