“Five minutes of nine,” said Mrs. Page, warningly.
“Is it so late?” inquired Marcus. “Well, we will have a bit of poetry to wind up with, and I will appoint Kate to read it aloud, as it is a beautiful piece, and I’m afraid none of the rest of us would do it justice.”
“O, you flatterer!” exclaimed Kate.
“No, it isn’t flattery,—it is a capital poem, if I’m any judge,” added Marcus, turning over the leaves of a book in search of the piece. “It’s by Bryant—ah, here it is. Now, Miss Kate, let us hear what the poet says about rain, so that we may have something pleasant to dream about, when we go to bed.”
Kate took the book, and read in an admirable manner the following lines:—
A RAIN DREAM.
BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
THESE strifes, these tumults of the noisy world,
Where Fraud, the coward, tracks his prey by stealth,
And Strength, the ruffian, glories in his guilt,