He glanced around at her and saw tears hanging on the thick fringe of her gold-brown lashes. “Are you grieved, Sweetheart, because I expressed myself so plainly about your verses?” he asked. “I thank you for your frankness, but I am grieved that I am not clever,” she said. “Poor little one! Yet you can not expect to have the earth. When God made you so beautiful that it is a pleasure simply to look at you, He gave you your share of earthly favors.” She brushed away the pearly tears with a tiny cobweb lace handkerchief and said, wistfully: “I remember that you compared beauty without intellect to a lamp without a flame, a rose without fragrance.” “I did not intend the comparison for you, Sweetheart, as, unfortunately for the peace of mankind, you have intellect enough to brighten the lamp and perfume the rose. I did not know you so yearned for the dignity of intellect, else I should have owned that I might find a publisher for your verses.” “A publisher? But it might be more difficult to find readers and a niche in the temple of fame. I do not thirst for mediocrity,” she said, with a sidelong glance at his smiling face. “You are right. And so many people arrive at nothing else, that I advise you not to attempt rivaling them. Keep your pretty verses for your friends’ reading. See, I carry some of them in my vest-pocket with which to refresh the dull prose of my thoughts.” “Pray don’t!” she cried, as he began to unfold the paper. “True genius is always modest,” Norman de Vere answered, laughingly; and he read aloud in tones so musical that they lent a new charm to Thea’s simple rhyme: “BEHIND THE CURTAIN. “Little school-girl at her books From the window chilly looks Out upon the sunny world, Bends her head so richly curled, Blushing with a thrill of bliss-- Daring youth has thrown a kiss! “‘Ah,’ the maiden sighed, ‘how sweet To be strolling down the street, With a lover by my side, Pledged to be his happy bride!’ Watchful teacher with a frown Sternly draws the curtain down, “Shuts the girl into the gloom Of the quiet, studious room; Rows of desks and dimpled faces, Smiling in accustomed places, Through the school the whisper ran: ‘Nellie flirted with a man!’ “Oh, what visions of romance Through their giddy fancies dance! And the world beyond the curtain Glimmered dazzling, vague, uncertain. Dreams of love and lovers blent With each roguish glance they sent. “‘Nellie, child, you know the rule; Own before the listening school Who’s that very rude young man? I’ll reprove him if I can!’ Nellie tittered: ‘Please forgive him, miss, ’Twas--I--that--that--threw--the--first--kiss.’” Both were laughing when he paused, but Thea was crimson, too.