"I don't pretend to teach."
"Then you ought to. Is it not the duty of 'us older ones,' as you said just now?—The old leaves living over again in the new, you know," and she smiled. "That's quite poetical, isn't it, even if it is a bit of a platitude?"
"And be laughed at for our pains, even as those hopeful young debutantes are laughing at the dowdy old leaves, on that dead tree yonder."
"I knew you were no true singer of Spring."
Two children wandered back along the path.
"I say, you're not a bad sort," said Tommy.
Madge laughed.
"Hullo, Tommy," cried the poet.