"Now that is only fooling, and I'm going to ask Miss Dutcher to read some of her verses to us. Dr. Thatcher writes me that she does verses excellently well." This sobered the company at once, as it well might, and Rose was in despair.
"O no, don't ask me to do that, please."
"This is your chance, rise to it," insisted Isabel.
"If you will I'll sing my song again for you," Sanborn said.
At last Rose gave up resistance. Her heart beat so terribly hard she felt smothered, but she recited a blank verse poem. It was an echo of Tennyson, of course, not exactly "Enoch Arden," but reminiscent of it, but the not too critical taste of Dr. Sanborn and Prof. Roberts accepted it with applause.
Mason stole a sly look at Isabel, who did not give up. She asked for one more and Rose read a second selection, a spasmodic, equally artificial graft, a supposedly deeply emotional lyric, an echo of Mrs. Browning, with a third line which went plumping to the deeps of passion after a rhyme. It had power in it, and a sort of sincerity in the reading which carried even Isabel away—besides that, her magnificent figure was a poem in itself.
"What a voice you have!" she said as she seized her by the hands. "You read beautifully—and you write well, too."
Rose noticed that Mr. Mason, the large man, said nothing at all. In the midst of the talk the maid approached Isabel.
"Some one has called for Miss Dutcher." Every one shook hands with her cordially; they received her as an equal, that was evident.
Isabel went in with Rose to help her put on her things.