“Now, fire ahead,” said Eric, “get your stones ready. Mrs. Jerrold, pray begin; let us put down this young parrot with her ‘lusty, live wine.’”
“Her?” exclaimed Edith. “Him, you mean.”
“Not a bit of it; a woman wrote that, didn’t she?”
Eric was very confident. Norman agreed with him, and he glanced at Mae to discover her opinion. There was a look of secret amusement in her face, and a dim suspicion entered his mind, which decided him to watch her closely.
“Well,” said Mrs. Jerrold, “I will be lenient. You children may throw all the stones. It is not poetry to my taste. There’s no metre to it, and I should certainly be sorry to think a woman wrote it.”
“Why?” asked Mae, quickly, almost commandingly. Norman glanced at her. There was a tiny rosebud on each cheek.
“Because,” replied Mrs. Jerrold, “it is too—too what, Edith?”
“Physical, perhaps,” suggested Edith.
“It is a satyr-like sort of writing,” suggested Norman.
“I should advise this person,” said Edith—