"Well, anyhow, she is a genius. Don't you think so, Warren?"
"She can whistle."
"O, don't be so enigmatical, it is out of place. She's got power. You can't deny that."
"Time enough to say what she can do when she finds out what polly-rot she is writing now. The whistling interested me," he added, malevolently.
Isabel's face darkened a little.
"I understand, this is one of your prank nights. But I shall not allow it to affect me. You cannot sneer down that beautiful girl."
"I'm not sneering her down. I am merely indicating where she needs help. She is a glorious creature physically and she's keen mentally—morally, no doubt, she's well instructed—after the manner of country girls—but esthetically she's in a sorrowful way. Taste is our weak point in America, and in the rural regions—well, there isn't any taste above that for shortcake, dollar chromos and the New York Repository."
"He's started, he's off!" said Roberts. "Now, I like the girl's verses; they are full of dignity and fervor, it seems to me."
"Full of fever, you mean. You specialists in nerve diseases and spotted bugs wouldn't know a crass imitation of Tennyson if you had it in a glass vial. It's such poor creatures as you who keep these young writers imitating successes. The girl has a fine roll of voice and a splendid curve of bust, and that made the stuff she read, poetry—to impressionable persons."
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" chorused the young people.