The sailing-master stared at the deck. "Ready at once, sir."
Mrs. Ferguson's fondness for classical poetry was no part of any stage make-believe. Varney, having found her the day before sitting on a coil of rope with Mr. Pope's Odyssey from the ship's library, had conceived a veneration for her taste. Now, as he drew near them again, she was telling Mary that though Tennyson was fine for the purty language, it was really Browning who understood the human heart. And down in the engine room they had everything ready for the bell.
"Have you two settled the poets' hash yet?" asked Varney. "I hope you
didn't make the mistake of preferring Tennyson to Browning, Miss
Carstairs? Thank you very much for entertaining our guest so nicely,
Mrs. Ferguson."
"What a wonder that woman is!" said Mary, looking back at her as they walked away. "I had thought that I was rather good at liking poetry, but she leaves me feeling like the dunce at the kindergarten."
She turned and looked out over the water, caught anew by the shining landscape. They stood side by side in the shade of the wide low awning. Half a mile to their left huddled the town, whither the others were already on their way; a few hundred yards behind them stood the big white Carstairs house, handsomely cresting the hill. From many miles to the northward a breeze danced down the river, and played capriciously over their faces, and so whisked on about its business. All the world looked smiling and very good.
Suddenly a bell tinkled. There was a slight splash, a faint rumble and quiver.
Varney laughed. "The passion for poetry," said he, "is a curious and complex thing. Its origin is shrouded in the earliest dawn of civilization. It appears in man's first instinctive gropings toward written self-expression—"
"Why," said Mary, in sudden surprise, "we are going!"