“Yes, for that was your fate at the last, wasn’t it? If I am not mistaken you sat for days on the ground, subsisting on your tears and watching the sun cross the heavens, until at last your limbs became rooted to the ground and you just naturally turned into a sunflower. At least, that’s the way I recollect it.” “Oh, but you shouldn’t tell me what my fate is to be,” she answered smilingly. “Forearmed is forewarned; no, I mean the other way around!” he replied. “Maybe if you just keep your feet moving you’ll escape that fate. It would be awfully uncomfortable, I should say! Besides, pardon me if it sounds rude, sunflowers are such unattractive things, don’t you think so?” [Illustration] “Yes, I’m afraid they are. The fate of Daphne or Lotis or Syrinx would be much nicer.” “What happened to them, please?” “Why, Daphne was changed to a laurel; have you forgotten?” “No, but how about the other ladies?” “Lotis became a lotus and Syrinx a clump of reeds. Pan gathered some and made himself pipes to play on. “‘Poor nymph!――Poor Pan!――how he did weep to find Naught but a lovely sighing of the wind Along the reedy stream; a half-heard strain Full of sweet desolation――balmy pain.’” “Shelley, for a dollar,” he said questioningly. She shook her head smilingly. “Keats,” she corrected. “Oh, I have a way of getting them mixed, those two chaps.” He paused. “Do you know, it sounds odd nowadays to hear anyone quote poetry?” “I suppose it does; I dare say it sounds very silly.” “Not a bit of it! I like it! I wish I could do it myself. All I know, though, is “‘The Lady Jane was tall and slim, The Lady Jane was fair, And Sir Thomas, my lord, was stout of limb, But his breath was short, and――――’ and so on. I used to recite that at school when I was a youngster; knew it all through; and I think there were five or six pages of it. I was quite proud of that, and used to stand on the platform Saturday mornings and just gallop it off. I think the humor appealed to me.” “It must have been delightful!” she laughed. “But you haven’t got even that quite right!” “Haven’t I? I dare say.” “No, Sir Thomas was _her_ lord, not _my_ lord, and it was his cough that was short instead of his breath.” “Shows that my memory is failing at last,” he answered. “But, tell me, do you know every piece of poetry ever written?” “No, not so many. I happen to remember that, though. Besides, we dwellers on Olympus hold poetry in rather more respect than you mortals.” “You forget that I am Vertumnus,” he answered haughtily. “Of course! And you puzzled me with that yesterday, too. I had to go home and hunt up a dictionary of mythology to see who Vertumnus was.” “I――I trust you found him fairly respectable?” he asked. “To tell the truth, I don’t recollect very much about him myself; and some of those old chaps were――well, a bit rapid.”