"Oh, don't say it wasn't yours! A little poem—it had your name at the end. There can't be another, surely," said Barbara, with a touch of resentment at the idea. "There were two illustrations, but I didn't care much for them; I didn't think they were good enough. I read the poem over and over. I did so hope I should recollect it all; but he was ready for Louisa before I had time to learn it properly, and our name was called. It was a very bad tooth, and Louisa had gas, you know. I was obliged to go. I am so slow at learning by heart. Louisa would have known it all in half the time; but I did wish I could have had just one minute more."
"Tell me what it was," Adrian said.
"My love loves me," Barbara began in a timid voice.
"Oh—that! Yes, I remember now. The man who edits that magazine is a friend of mine, and he asked me for some little thing for his Christmas number. If I had thought you would have cared I could have sent it to you."
Her eyes shone with grateful happiness.
"But I didn't," said Adrian. "I didn't do anything. Well, go on, Barbara, tell me how much you remembered."
Barbara paused a moment, looking back to the open page on the dentist's green table-cloth. As she spoke she could see poor Louisa, awaiting her summons with a resigned and swollen face, an old gentleman examining a picture in the Illustrated London News through his eyeglass, and a lady apprehensively turning the pages of the dentist's pamphlet, On Diseases of the Teeth and Gums. Outside, the rain was streaming down the window panes. Barbara recalled all this with Adrian's verses.
"My love loves me. Then wherefore care
For rain or shine, for foul or fair?
My love loves me.