“Miss Barnes, the lady I worked for at Louisa, said so,” eagerly. “But of course that is not exactly intellect. It was intellect we were talking of, you know.”
“Yes,” smilingly.
She rode on silently awhile, giving all her attention to the cream-white pony which was as sweetly docile as could be desired for a new beginner. They were outside the city now, going along a country-road luxuriant with the tropic vegetation of the South. Norman de Vere, watching the thoughtful face eagerly, fancied that some struggle was going on in her mind between timidity and doubt.
“What is it you wish to ask me, Sweetheart?” kindly.
“Oh! how did you know? Does my face tell secrets like that?” She looked surprised, rueful, then burst out: “Well, it was only this: Do you think verse-writing a sign of intellect?”
“Do you write verse, little sister?” laughingly.
“Answer me first,” she returned, saucily.
“Well, then, I can not say positively. I have read verse that was not poetry—nothing but laboriously constructed rhyme, with not a pretty conceit or fancy to pay one for reading it.”
“I dare say that is my kind of verse,” despondently.
“So you do write poetry?” eagerly, amusedly.