"Why, don't you think he looks clever?" exclaimed Kitty, "I do."

"It wasn't clever of him to have sandy hair," Blue Bonnet declared perversely.

"As if he could help it!" said Sarah.

"We must write a 'pome,' too," said Blue Bonnet.

"We?" exclaimed Debby. "I never found two words to rhyme in all my life. You and Kitty are the only ones who ever 'drop into poetry.'"

"The muse must be partial to red hair," said Amanda. And though Kitty sniffed insultedly at this insinuation, her bright head was soon bent over a pad beside Blue Bonnet's, and after much chewing of their pencils and shrieks of laughter at impossible rhymes, the two of them finally evolved the following:

WE ARE SEVEN
"You marvel that a simple band
Of maidens, young and fair,
Should linger ever on the land,
Nor for the water care?

"If you should ask in dulcet tone
Why for the earth they sigh,
They'll weep, they'll shriek, they'll give a groan,—
But they will answer why.

"'Last night we were a happy bunch,
Last night about eleven—'
Quoth you—'But why this sorry lot?
How many members have you got?'
They'll answer—'We Are Seven.'

"'But seven are not all alive?'
'Yea, yea, thou trifling varlet,
Though here we number only five,—
Two caught a fever scarlet.

"'And o'er us five whose courage great
Brought us to far-off Texas,
There seems to brood an awful fate,
And trials sore to vex us.

"'To-day the bridge on which we stood
And posed above the rippling wave,
Alas! was made of rotten wood
And plunged us in a watery grave.'

"'Then ye are dead! All five are dead!
Their spirits are in heaven!'
'Tis throwing words away, for still
These maidens five will have their will,
And answer—'We Are Seven!'"

"I wonder what Mr. Wordsworth would say to that?" said Debby, when this effort had been heard and elaborately praised.

"He's dead," remarked Sarah. Then, ignoring Debby's snicker she continued: "It's very good, Blue Bonnet,—but you shouldn't have said that two had the scarlet fever. There's only one, really."

"Poetic license!" Kitty claimed fiercely.