"Oh, I say!" murmured Gerald; "that is a peach!"
"Jerry," said his mother, plaintively, "have you no adjectives, my poor destitute child? I can imagine few things less peach-like than that glorious passage. But never mind! Jack, it is your turn."
"'The gray sea and the long black land,
And the yellow half-moon large and low—'"
said Jack, half under his breath.
"It isn't yellow, and it isn't half," said Gerald. "But never mind, as the Mater says. Margaret, you come next."
Margaret looked up, her face full of tranquil happiness.
"I was thinking," she said, "of some lines from 'Evangeline,' that I have always loved. I say them over to myself every night in this wonderful moon-time:
"'Beautiful was the night. Behind the black wall of the forest,
Tipping its summit with silver, arose the moon. On the river
Fell here and there through the branches a tremulous gleam of the moonlight,
Like the sweet thoughts of love on a darkened and devious spirit.'"
"Peggy, what have you for us?" asked Mrs. Merryweather.
"Oh!" cried poor Peggy, "you know I never can remember poetry, Mrs. Merryweather. I shall have to take to 'Mother Goose.' I know I am terribly prosy—well, prosaic, then, Margaret; what's the difference? But I can't think of anything except: