"This is the first poetry I ever wrote," said Hilda, trying not to look conscious.
"And it's lovely!" said Cricket, approvingly. "Read it to the girls, please, Hilda." And Hilda, waiting for a little urging, though she was really dying to read it, produced her "poem," and read:
"It was Christmas eve, now remember,
And out in the cold world alone,
A cold night, too, in December,
There wandered a poor little one.
"Waiting in sorrow and weeping,
Waiting out there in the cold,
Why should she have cause to sorrow?
Why, her mother lay there in the mould.
"And where was the child's own father?
Was he in the cold ground, too?
No, her father was in the billiard-room.
I pity the poor child, don't you?"
"That's too sweet for anything, Hilda! All you girls are clever but me," sighed Edna, half enviously.
"I've just decided that I'll be a poetess like Mrs. Browning, when I grow up," said Hilda, calmly. "I never tried writing poetry before, but it's just as easy. It would be very interesting to be a poetess," added Hilda, who was given to day-dreams, in which she was always famous.