"Oh, that is easy enough," said Millicent, much pleased. "Whenever I don't know just what to put I look in my rhyming dictionary for a word."
"Rhyming dictionary?" repeated Peggy, at last uncovering a crimson face. "Do poets use rhyming dictionaries?"
"Of course. They are obliged to very often, and it saves so much time and thought, you know. Now this is a sonnet. It is my favorite form of verse. I suppose you both know that a sonnet must be just fourteen lines?"
"Oh, I know," agreed Peggy, amiably, "and there are other rules about it, too."
"Well, that one is the most important, about the fourteen lines. I don't pay much attention to the other rules. I think rules hamper you when you are composing."
"Oh!" said Peggy.
"This is Called 'A Sonnet to the Moth Miller,'" continued Millicent:
"Oh, little creature, made so fair, so white,
What seekest thou about my closet door?
To see thee fills no soul with deep delight,
Thy coming almost all men do deplore.
So silent and so fatal is thy task
We haste to catch thee, bring the camphor forth,
To kill thee quite stone-dead is all we ask,
Thou little quiet woollen-loving moth!
We crush thee, cast the atoms to the wind,
Stamp underfoot, and tread thee with the heel.
Oh, tell me! Dost thou really truly mind?
Can little frail white creatures like thee feel?
What are thy thoughts, and what emotions thine?
To know thy feelings, dear white moth, I pine!"
When Millicent's pathetic voice ceased there was silence in the room, and then from the table upon which Peggy's head was resting came peal after peal of laughter.
