Had scraped the blackest moss away.
She put a jolly little boat
For wounded soldiers on the moat;
Her relatives were bound to own
How practical the girl had grown.
She often said, "I feel more cheery,
I doubt if I can stick this dreary
Old grange again when peace is rife;
You really couldn't call it life."

But something infinitely more
Than just a European War
Would have been requisite to part
Romance from _Mariana's_ heart;
Once more she felt within her stir
The dawn of _une affaire de coeur_;
In other words, I must confess
She found her thoughts were centred less
On that young man who never came
And more on Captain What's-his-name,
Who'd left his other leg in France
And was a model of romance.

* * * * *

The wedding was a pretty thing;
I sent the "Idylls of the King,"
Well bound. And _Mariana_ wrote
A most appreciative note.
They live in London now, I'm told;