"Then I won't try to make it." And Nan went on, "Do you spell scanned with one n or two?" she asked after a while.
"With two, dear."
Nan set to work again. After a time she looked up anxiously. "Does cheap sound very badly in a poem?"
"It depends. I can tell better when I see."
"I'll have to leave it," said Nan. "There isn't any other word that will rhyme and make sense. There, that's the very best I can do." She brought her paper to her aunt who read the following:
"I thought, what can I send to her
Who is so very dear to me?
Shall I search the skies above,
Or the sea?
Shall I travel east and west?
Shall I look from south to north?
Where's a gift to give my best,
Dearest mother?
"But the skies are very far,
And the sea is much too deep,
While to travel all the earth
Is not cheap.
So, when I had scanned the blue,
Looked around, below, above,
All that I could find for you
Was my love, mother."
Nan watched her aunt anxiously. "Will it do?" she asked, wistfully.
Her aunt read it over again. "You have caught the metre quite well," she said, "and——" She knew it could be improved, but she did not want to take the childishness from it so she said: "Yes, Nan, on the whole, I think it will do."
"And may I put words and music by Nannette Weston Corner?" the composer asked eagerly.