But they are wonderfully fine, sometimes. O, bother, I never can
quote, but there is something about 'I will go back to the great sweet
mother."'

"Or this," suggested Mae,

"'And to me thou art matchless and fair
As the tawny sweet twilight, with blended
Sunlight and red stars in her hair.'"

"I love my masters," continued this young enthusiast, "because they
fling all rules aside, and cry out as they choose. It is their very
heart's blood and the lusty wine of life that they give you, not just
a scrap of 'rosemary for remembrance' and a soothing herb-tea made
from the flowers of fancy they have culled from those much travestied,
abominable fields of thought."

"And this from a lover of Wordsworth, who holds the 'Daffodils' and
'Lucy' as her chief jewels, and quotes the 'Immortality' perpetually!"
cried Eric. "If any body ever wandered up and down those same fields of
thought, by more intricate, labyrinthine passages and byways, I'd
like to know of him. Talk about soothing herbs, bless me, it's hot
catnip-tea, good and strong, that he serves up in half of his strings
about--"

"O, Eric, hush," cried Mae, "I am afraid for you with such words on your
lips. Think of Ananias."

"Before you children go wandering off on one of your poet fights," broke
in Albert, "let me take you to task, Mae, for stealing; that lusty wine