"Oh," exclaimed Hester. She looked at Miss Bucher again. The glory of being editor of the "Mirror" cast a halo about the head of the otherwise unattractive girl.
"Yes, the girls selected me. I do not understand why they did. They appeared to think I had literary ability. Of course, I do not see that I have, but everyone speaks about it."
She had an unpleasant little mannerism of talking through closed teeth and but slightly parted lips. In conversation, she used her lips as little as possible. It may have been that she wished to keep them from wearing out, or perhaps, she considered it unladylike to open her mouth more than was absolutely necessary.
"I came to have you help. We always appoint four girls to collect news, write special articles and poetry. Of course everything must treat of school life. Then, when it is printed—"
"Printed," cried Hester, her eyes snapping with fire. "Do you really have it printed and do the ones who write things have their names in it?"
"Certainly. It is issued four times a year; once during each semester, and a special souvenir one for commencement. What do you think you'd like to do?"
"I'll write some poetry," said Hester. She had never written any in her life, but she had the feeling that she could do it by half trying.
"Poetry, isn't hard," she replied airily to Miss Bucher's look of surprise. "Just make out a list of rhymes like this." She took up a paper and wrote:
Side
wide
right
might
knee
me.
"Then you fill them in," she continued. She held the pencil suspended in the air. Her brow was puckered with thought. "Of course, it isn't supposed to read as sensibly as prose. That is one of the greatest differences between them. In poetry one must use imagination and poetic license." Then she fell to work upon the paper and wrote steadily and laboriously for some minutes. Her eye flashed with triumph. "Listen. Of course this is mere rough work. I'll polish up what I write for the 'Mirror.'