“The muses inspired you,” suggested Walter.
“You are very kind to say so, Mr. Howard. I am too humble to think so. The lines were written in a sad and pensive mood, as you will guess. But I find it sweet to be sad at times--don’t you?”
“I don’t think I do,” said our hero.
“I’d rather be jolly, a good deal,” said Ichabod.
“Tastes differ,” said the hostess. “I am of a pensive, thoughtful temperament, and at times my thoughts go roaming away from the world around me, and I seem to live in a world of my own. ’Twas so with Byron and Mrs. Hemans, I have been told.”
“I am glad I ain’t a poet,” said Ichabod. “I shouldn’t like to feel so.”
“You never will, Ichabod,” said his sister. “You are not gifted with the poetic temperament.”
“No more I am. I never could make a rhyme, to save my life. The first line comes sort of easy, but it’s the second that is the sticker.”
“Strange what differences are found in the same family, Mr. Howard,” said Melinda, with a calm superiority. “You see how different Ichabod and I are.”
“Very true, Miss Jones,” said Walter; though, to tell the truth, he preferred the illiterate and prosaic Ichabod, with his absence of pretension, to his “gifted” sister.