I hated Miss Goss, and must have
shown it in my stony stare, for she put
her arm around me and said it was a
pity I had been to all the trouble to
learn a poem which was -- well, a trifle
too -- too old -- but that she hoped to find
something equally "pretty" for me to
speak. At the use of that adjective in
connection with William Lytle's lines, I
wrenched away from her grasp and
stood in what I was pleased to think a
haughty calm, awaiting her directions.

She took from the shelves a little vol-
ume of Whittier, bound in calf, hand-
ling it as tenderly as if it were a price-
less possession. Some pressed violets
dropped out as she opened it, and she
replaced them with devotional fingers.
After some time she decided upon a
lyric lament entitled "Eva." I was
asked to run over the verses, and found
them remarkably easy to learn; fatally
impossible to forget. I presently arose
and with an impish betrayal of the pov-
erty of rhyme and the plethora of sen-
timent, repeated the thing relentlessly.


O for faith like thine, sweet Eva,