I sent the poem to Kate by the next mail, and that evening I called. She was very much pleased with the poem, and said it was witty, and just what she might have expected from me. She said it did not have as much soul as Tennyson's “In Memoriam,” but that it was so different, one could hardly compare the two. She suggested that the first line ought to be illustrated. So the next morning I sent up a box of bonbons,--just as an illustration. “Now, Biggs,” I said, “we have made a good start; and we want to keep things going. What we want now is a poem that will go right to the spot. Something that will show on the face of it that it was meant for her, and for no one else. The first effort is all right, but it might have been written for any girl.” “Then,” said Biggs, “you'll have to tell me how you stand with her, so I can have something to lay hold on.” I told him as much as I could, just as I had told my noble Perkins; and Biggs dug in, and in a half-hour handed me:-- THE GIRL I LOVE “I love a maid, and shall I tell you why? It is not only that her soulful eye Sets my heart beating at so huge a rate That I'm appalled to feel it palpitate; No! though her eye has power to conquer mine. And fill my breast with feelings most divine, Another thing my heart in love immersed-- Kate reads the advertising pages first! “A Sunday paper comes to her fair hand Teeming with news of every foreign land, With social gossip, fashions new and rare, And politics and scandal in good share, With verse and prose and pictures, and the lore Of witty writers in a goodly corps, Wit, wisdom, humor, all things interspersed-- Kate reads the advertising pages first! “The magazine, in brilliant cover bound, Into her home its welcome way has found, But, ere she reads the story of the trust, Or tale of bosses, haughty and unjust, Or tale of love, or strife, or pathos deep That makes the gentle maiden shyly weep, Or strange adventures thrillingly rehearsed, Kate reads the advertising pages first! “Give me each time the maid with such a mind, The maid who is superior to her kind; She feels the pulse-beats of the world of men, The power of the advertiser's pen; She knows that fact more great than fiction Is, And that the nation's life-blood is its 'biz.' I love the maid who woman's way reversed And reads the advertising pages first!” “Now, there,” said Biggs, “is something that ought to nail her sure. It is one of the best things I have ever done. I am a poet, and I know good poetry when I see it; and I give you my word that is the real article.”