"Why—Old-Dad!" gasped Daphne. Sitting bolt upright, her cheeks blazing, she stared aghast at him.
"Oh, of course, you've never been in love!" she cried. "But I tell you when you're sitting all alone with your love-secret in a whole recitation roomful of girls and—and he comes in—so lithe—so beautiful—and smiles through everybody—right at you— and—and then begins to read—it's Shakespeare, you know
'How like a winter hath my absence been
From Thee——'
Oh, Old-Dad, if you could only hear him read!"
Before the sudden twinkle in her father's eyes she reverted 99 equally suddenly into sheer childishness again and began to pound him quite familiarly with her small fists.
"Oh, you're just teasing me!" she laughed. "You naughty, naughty—Old-Dad! Oh, very well then, here's another poem for you! You'll love this one! I made it up last night It's all about you!"
"Shoot!" said her father.
Re-dramatized in that single instant to the role of a poet she straightened up very formally. Back to her breast crept the quivering little hands. Her eyes were blurred with tears. "The name of this poem," she said, "is 'The Word that God Forgot to Make.' But if that's too long I could, of course, call it just 'The Miracle.' See what you think.
'Out of panic and pain, out of unspeakable disaster,