"And so he spoke, "Oh, Mr. P----, Oh, Porpoise, sleek and trim, The thought has just occurred to me My wisdom's rather slim; But I believe a creature that 'S as beautiful as you Can't have the heart to let a flat Like me die in the blue."
"You think me so?" the Porpoise said. "I do!" the sage replied. "You have the purest classic head I ever have espied. Your eyes are truly lovely, And your mouth is full of grace, And nothing nobler can one see Than is your noble face."
"The Land-sage ceased; the Porpoise smoled And winked his eyes of blue. "You've won, professor. You have told Me something truly new. I never heard my beauty praised In all my life before." And then his good right fin he raised And towed the sage ashore."
Outside, the house was simply one of a long row of brownstone houses which line many of the New York streets, but the room in which Millicent Reid was sitting this fine spring afternoon had an individuality of its own.
"The girls" were Millicent and Joanna Reid.
Millicent was nearly seventeen, and with her cousin Peggy, who lived across the street, studied with a governess and various masters, but Joanna, or Joan, as she was frequently called, went to school. At this very moment she burst into the room, carrying a pile of school books, which she flung on the table with a resounding crash.
"It is to be on the 30th of April, and we are all asked to send just as much as we can, and Mrs. Pearson said anything would do," said Joanna, as she pulled off her gloves.
"Oh, don't, Joan!" exclaimed Millicent, who had a pencil in her hand, and had hastily thrust a morocco-bound book under the sofa pillow when her sister entered. "You do startle me so. What is to be on the 30th of April?"
"The fair, of course. Now don't pretend you don't know anything about it, when the Pearsons have talked of nothing else for weeks."
"I have had other things to think of," returned Millicent, with dignity. "For one thing, I am wondering which of us three Cousin Appolina will take with her to England. If she only would choose me! And then--oh, there are other things!" And she nibbled the end of her pencil.
Millicent was Joanna's only sister, and she had beautiful golden hair, large blue eyes, and poetic tendencies. Joan was very sure that the morocco-bound book, of which she had caught a glimpse more than once when it was thrust away just as it had been this afternoon, contained poems--actual poems.