'The what?' he asked, overhearing her. 'The nunculus,' she repeated bravely, seeing the word in her mind, yet unable to get it quite. Rogers did not correct her. 'Rather,' was all he said. 'Of course it is.' What did the pronunciation of a word matter at such a time? Her version even sounded better than the original. Mother saw things bigger! Already she was becoming creative! 'And you're the one who brought it,' she continued, but this time so low that he did not catch the words. 'It's you, your personality, your thinking, your atmosphere somehow that have brought this gigantic sense of peace and calm security which are _au fond_ nothing but the consciousness of harmony and the power of seeing ugly details in their proper place--in a single _coup d'oeil_--and understanding them as parts of a perfect whole.' It was her thought really running on; she never could have found the words like that. She thought in French, too, for one thing. And, in any case, Rogers could not have heard her, for he was listening now to the uproar of the children as they criticised Daddy's ridiculous effusion. A haystack, courted in vain by zephyrs, but finally taken captive by an equinoctial gale, strained nonsense too finely for their sense of what was right and funny. It was the pictures he now drew in the book that woke their laughter. He gave the stack a physiognomy that they recognised. 'But, Mother, he's making it look like you!' cried Monkey--only Mother was too far away in her magnificent reverie to reply intelligently. I know her; she's my friend,' she answered vaguely. 'So it's all right.' 'Majestic Haystack'--it was the voice of the wind addressing her:-- 'Majestic Haystack, Empress of my life, Your ample waist Just fits the gown I fancy for my wife, And suits my taste; Yet there you stand, flat-footed, square and deep, An unresponsive, elephantine heap, Coquetting with the stars while I'm asleep, O cruel Stack! Coy, silent Monster, Matron of the fields, I sing to you; And all the fondest love that summer yields I bring to you; Yet there you squat, immense in your disdain, Heedless of all the tears of streaming rain My eyes drip over you--your breathless swain; O stony Stack! Stupendous Maiden, sweetest when oblong, Does inner flame Now smoulder in thy soul to hear my song Repeat thy name? Or does thy huge and ponderous heart object The advances of my passion, and reject My love because it's airy and elect? O wily Stack! O crested goddess, thatched and top-knotted, O reckless Stack! Of wives that to the Wind have been allotted There is no lack; You've spurned my love as though I were a worm; But next September when I see thy form, I'll woo thee with an equinoctial storm! I have that knack!'