"Oh! thank you," cried Alice, as she held the flowers before her eyes in a vain effort to see them. "The music is pretty. Can't you remember any of the words?"
"Only a few," replied Quincy. Then he repeated in a low, but clear voice:
"There is the sweet flower
They call forget-me-not;
That flower place on thy breast,
And think of me."
"Say, Quincy, can't you come over here and recite a little poem about roses to Miss Very, just to help me out?" cried Leopold. "All I can think of is:
"The rose is red,
The violet's blue—"
"Stop where you are," said Rosa laughingly, "for that will do."
Alice dropped the forget-me-nots, in her lap. The illusion was dispelled.
The newly-completed chapters were next read, and quite a spirited discussion took place in regard to the political features introduced in one of them. Dinner intervened and then the discussion was resumed.
Alice maintained that to write about Aaron Burr and omit politics would be the play of "Hamlet," with Hamlet left out; and her auditors were charmed and yet somewhat startled at the impassioned and eloquent manner in which she defended Burr's political principles.
When she finished Leopold said, "Miss Pettengill, if you will put in your book the energetic defence that you have just made, I will withdraw my objections."