"Duty, like a strict preceptor,
Sometimes frowns or seems to frown.
Choose her thistle for thy sceptre,
While youth's roses are thy crown."
"It was written by a poet for his own little daughter Dora," said Mrs. Howard.
Aleck had:
"The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they while their companions slept
Were toiling upward in the night."
"Cousin Zélie thinks I am lazy," he said, laughing.
"Mine is better than Dora's, and I know where it came from, and she has not an idea," said Carl. His lines were:
"My good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten
Because my heart is pure."
"I don't care, for I can find out, and that is half the fun," Dora replied, comparing hers with Louise's, which had lilies of the valley on it, and these lines:
"I pray the prayer of Plato old—
God make thee beautiful within,
And may thine eyes the good behold
In everything save sin."
Uncle William put his card away before anybody had seen it, and refused to show it, in spite of much coaxing.