"No; was it very smart?" asked Lady Farley. "Eleanor's verses generally are."
"Awfully good. I wish I could repeat it to you, but I can only remember one verse. This is it:—
"A bishop must not revel in strong drink;
Though he may take a little, I have heard,
Just for the sake of—no, I do not think
It maidenly to use the Pauline word:
I only say he'll take some, should there cease
To be beneath his apron perfect peace."
Everybody was amused and Mr. Kesterton shouted with laughter. "Capital," he cried, "capital! Lady Eleanor is a clever little girl. But it is a pity she does not confine herself to penning humorous verses, instead of indulging in the love-sick ditties we frequently read in the magazines above her signature."
"Still she can write good poetry," remarked Paul.
"That may be; but I don't like young ladies to wear the willow in print in that fashion. I may be old-fashioned, but that is my opinion."
"And mine too," agreed Lord Wrexham.
"I expect her willow is an artificial flower," said Isabel, "or she would not wave it before the public eye. The people who have really felt things don't write about them."
"Then don't you think the faithless swain of her poems is a real person?" wondered Ethel Gordon.
"I once asked her if he was," answered Lord Robert. "Everybody was asking the question behind her back, I told her, and I thought it a more effective plan to ask it before her face."