"Oh, goodness, no!" said Patty, quickly. "But most of the poetry with which I am familiar was written by dead men—that is, they weren't dead when they wrote it, you know——"
"But died from the shock?"
"Now you're making fun of me," and Patty pouted, but as Patty's pout was only a shade less charming than her smile, the live poet didn't seem to resent it.
"Doubtless," he went on, "my work will not be really famous until after I am dead, but some day I shall read them to you, and get your opinion as to their hopes for a future."
"Oh, do read them to Patty," exclaimed Elise; "read them now. That's the very thing for a stormy day!"
"Yes," Patty agreed; "if you have an Ode to Spring, or Lines on a Blooming Daffodil, it would be fine to fling them in the teeth of this storm."
"I see you're by way of being a wag, Miss Fairfield," Blaney returned, good-naturedly. "But you've misapprehended my vein. I write poems, not jingles."
"He does," averred Elise, earnestly. "Oh, Sam, do recite some—won't you?"
"Not now, Lady fair. The setting isn't right, and the flowers are too vivid."
Patty looked at the two large vases of scarlet carnations that stood on the long, massive table in the middle of the room. She had thought them a very pleasant and appropriate decoration for the snowy day, but Blaney's glance at them was disdainful.