Beth had not heard him approach, and she turned round, startled, when he spoke.
"I thought I was singing!" she rejoined.
"Don't dig and disfigure the beautiful bare brown bosom of the shore," he pursued.
"I did not mean to dig," Beth said, looking up in his face; and then looking round about her in perfect comprehension of his mood—"The beautiful bare brown bosom of the shore," she slowly repeated, delighting in the phrase. "It's the kind of thing you can sing, you know."
"Yes," said the man, suddenly smiling; "it is pure poetry, and I make you a present of the copyright."
"But," Beth objected, "the shore is not brown. I've been thinking and thinking what to call it. It's the colour—the colour of—the colour of tarnished silver," she burst out at last triumphantly.
"Well observed," he said.
"Then I make you a present of the copyright," Beth answered readily.
"Thank you," he said; "but it will not scan."
"What is scan?"