It was Lady Oxford's patience under the verses which put it into Wogan's head. For since she endured to listen to poetry about trees and shepherds, poetry about herself must be a sheer delight to her. So, at all events, he reasoned, not knowing that Lady Oxford had already enjoyed occasion to listen to poetry about herself from Lady Mary's pen, which was anything but a delight. Accordingly he hinted to his friend that a little ode might set a firm seal upon her friendliness. 'Make her a Dryad in one of the trees of her own orchard, d'ye see?' he suggested; 'something pretty and artful, with sufficient allusions to her beauty. Who knows but what she may be so flattered as to carry the verses against her heart; and so, when some fine day she brings her husband's secrets to Mr. Walpole, she may hear the paper crackling against her bodice, and turn back on the very doorstep.' 'She will carry no secrets,' replied Kelly with a huff. 'She is too conscious of her duties. Besides, she knows none. Have you not seen her leave the room the moment politics are so much as hinted of?' 'True,' said Wogan. 'But what's her husband for except to provide her with secrets when they are alone to which she cannot listen without impertinence in company?' Kelly moved impatiently away. He stood with a foot upon the fender, turning over the pages of his Virgil. 'You allow her no merit whatsoever,' he said slowly with a great gentleness. 'Indeed, but I do,' replied Wogan. 'I allow that she will be charmed by your poetry, and that's a rare merit. She will find it as soothing as a soldier does a pipe of tobacco after a hard day's fighting.' 'I would not practise on her for the world,' says Kelly with just the same gentleness, and goes softly out by the door. Wogan, however, was troubled by no such delicate scruples. An ode must be written, even if he had to write it himself. He slapped his forehead as the notion occurred to him. The ode might be dropped as though by accident at some spot where her ladyship's eyes could not fail to light on it. Wogan heaved a deep breath, took a turn across the room, and resolved on the heroical feat. He would turn poet to help his friend. For two nights he fortified himself with the perusal of Sir John Suckling's poems, and the next morning took pencil and paper into the garden. He walked along the terrace, and seated himself on the bench beneath the yew-tree. Wogan sucked strenuously at his pencil. 'Strephon to his Smilinda, running barefoot over the grass in a gale of wind,' he wrote at the top, and was very well pleased with the title. By noonday he had produced a verse, and was very well pleased with that, except, perhaps, that the last line halted. The verse ran as follows:--