“She is the one Professor Towne reads from?”
“Yes. I will write some words of hers.”
The pencil wrote, and Nan, on her knees, read it word by word.
“I wait for the day when dear hearts shall discover,
While dear hands are laid on my head;
‘The child is a woman, the book may close over,
For all the lessons are said.’
“I wait for my story—the birds can not sing it,
Not one as he sits on the tree;
The bells can not ring it, but long years, O bring it!
Such as I wish it to be.”
“Thank you, very much. You write a fine hand. ‘Such as I wish it to be?’ No one’s story is ever that—do you think it ever is?”
“We will do our best to make ours such as we wish it to be.”
“Professor Towne is to have a private class in elocution after the holidays, and I’m going to join. He says that I will make a reader. I wish that you would join too.”
“I wish I might, but I shall not be at home; I am to spend a part of the winter away.”
“Oh, are you? Just as I have found you. But you promise to write to me?”
“Yes, I will write to you; I beg of you not to try any experiments with me,” she added laughing.