"Oh, you're not praying, are you?" he squirmed. "Oh, I do hope you're not one of those people who makes his spiritual toilet in public! Dear me! Dear me! To brush your soul night and morning is no more, of course, than any neat person would do. But in public----" "I wasn't praying," said Daphne. "I was making a little poem." "You seem to be rather prone to make little poems," murmured her father. "Would you like to hear this one?" offered Daphne. "Oh, I don't mind," said her father. "All right," quivered Daphne. "It's about Love." "So I supposed," mused her father. "And death," confided Daphne. [97] "I wouldn't wonder at all," admitted her father. "And its name?" puzzled Daphne. "Oh, I guess it hasn't any name! It just begins! This is it: 'Oh, the little rose that died, How it tried, oh, how it tried Just to grow a little stronger, Just to live a little longer, Snatching sunshine, sipping rain Till the June should come again! Didn't want to be a tree, Didn't envy you or me, Asked no favor ere life's close But the chance to be a rose, Oh, that little rose that died, How it tried! Oh, how it tried!----'" "U--m--m," mused her father. "But I thought you said it was about 'Love.' This is all about 'roses.'" "But it _is_ about 'Love!'" flared Daphne. "The rose part is just--just figurative! You have to do that in poetry! Make most everything figurative, or else it wouldn't be--be delicate." Quite palpably her upper lip began to tremble. "Why, didn't you like it?" [98] she whispered. "Didn't you like it at all, I mean?" "Oh, yes," hurried her father, "I liked it very much, oh very! Though personally on these crape-y poems I must confess I like some jolly refrain added like 'Yo-ho and a bottle of rum!----'" "Why--Old-Dad!" gasped Daphne. Sitting bolt upright, her cheeks blazing, she stared aghast at him. "Oh, of course, you've never been in love!" she cried. "But I tell you when you're sitting all alone with your love-secret in a whole recitation roomful of girls and--and _he_ comes in--so lithe--so beautiful--and smiles through everybody--right at you--and--and then begins to read--it's Shakespeare, you know 'How like a winter hath my absence been From Thee----' Oh, Old-Dad, if you could only hear him read!" Before the sudden twinkle in her father's eyes she reverted equally suddenly into sheer [99] childishness again and began to pound him quite familiarly with her small fists. "Oh, you're just teasing me!" she laughed. "You naughty, naughty--Old-Dad! Oh, very well then, here's another poem for you! You'll love this one! I made it up last night It's all about you!" "Shoot!" said her father.