lovely details of her appearance behind the coffee tray--the morning
sunlight on her white hair and on the massive, hand-beaten, old silver
service, the solitary rose he had purchased in the street standing
between them in a slender Bohemian vase, brought from the rare old china
in the press just at her back, the dainty hemstitching on her collar and
cuffs of fine thread cambric, and lastly the vivid spot of color made by
the knitting she had laid aside.

"I met Laura Wilde," he answered presently, "but as you never read
poetry you can't understand just what it means."

As she held the cream jug poised above his coffee cup Mrs. Trent smiled
back at him with a placid wonder.

"Who is she, my son? A lady--I mean a _real_ one?"

"Oh, yes, sterling."

"But she writes verse you say! Is it improper?"

His eyes shone with amusement. "Improper! Why, what an idea!"

"I'm sure I don't know how it is," responded his mother, carefully
measuring with her eye the correct allowance of cream, "but somehow
women always seem to get immodest when they take to verse. It's as if
they went into it for the express purpose of airing their
improprieties."

"I say!" he exclaimed, with gentle mockery, "have you been reading
'Sappho' at your age?"