"By-the-bye," the Tenor said, like one who suddenly remembers, "I found some verses after you were here the other night"—and he straightened himself to feel in his pockets—"I suppose you dropped them. Here they are." And then he leant back in his chair again and read aloud;
"When the winter storms were howling o'er the ocean,
Leafless trees and sombre landscape cold and drear,
Bitter winds, and driving rains, or white commotion
Of the whirling snow that drifted far and near;
Then my heart, which had been strong, was bowed and broken,
I was crushed with sudden sense of loss and fear,
Dull as silence passed the days and brought no token
Of a light to make the darkness disappear.
Would the grief that wrecked my life forever hold me?
Soon or later winter storms their ravage cease—
With the coming of the green leaves, something told me,
With the coming of the green leaves there is peace.
When the bursting buds proclaim'd the spring time nearing.
Song of birds and scent of flowers everywhere,
Drowsy drone of distant workers, and the cheering
Hum of honey-seeking bees in all the air;
Then my sorrow took swift wings and rose and left me;
And I knew no more the aching of despair;
Came again to me the joy that seemed bereft me,
And for hope I changed the dreary weight of care.
With the winter tempests pass'd the storms of feeling,
Soon and surely did their power to pain me cease,
And the sunshine-lighted summer rose revealing
With the coming of the green leaves there is peace."
The Tenor looked at the Boy when he had finished, shook his head mournfully, struck a match, set fire to the paper upon which the verses were written, and watched it burn with the air of a disappointed man.
"Don't make any more rhymes, Boy," he said; "don't write any more, at least, until you get out of the sickly sentimental stage. I thought I was prepared for the worst, but I really never imagined anything quite so bad as that."
The Boy, although he had listened to the lines with a fine affectation of enjoyment, was in no way discomposed by the Tenor's adverse criticism; he seemed, on the contrary, to enjoy that too, for he chuckled and hugged himself ecstatically before he replied.
"I should like to know," he said, with his uncanny grin, "how you found out those lines were mine, for I certainly never told you that I wrote them."
The Tenor's mind misgave him.
"Didn't you?" he said, looking at the ashes.
The Boy threw himself back on the sofa.