“Oh, don’t say that!” answered Phyllis. “Mr. Burns is so happy about it.”
“He won’t be very happy when he reads the reviews, however,” said Philip. “Look here! He rhymes home with throne. Listen, did you ever read such drivel?
“‘Where are joys like those of home? I would not change them for a throne, I have no wish afar to rove, When here I find a home and love.’”
“I think it is very pretty,” said Phyllis, who liked Uncle Robert, and did not like to hear his work run down.
“That is because you are an ignorant little girl!” Philip told her, pinching her cheek.
Philip went on reading:
“‘I wandered through the dales of dawn.’ What are the ‘dales of dawn’? Perhaps he means at dawn. ‘My unaccustomed eyes fast set.’ Good heavens! ‘fast set.’ If he means fast shut, he ought to go on to describe how he came a cropper in the ‘dales of dawn.’ Well, all I hope is that the public won’t find out that the author of this idiotic drivel is my uncle!”
Philip and Phyllis had their backs to the open door. They did not see Uncle Robert transfixed on the threshold.
He had come in search of them, and—he had heard!
All the light had died out of his face when he stole away. He did not join his sister and Colonel Lane. He went out into the garden.