“I found something,” repeated little Anne, “when I was looking for you. It was on the floor, upstairs in the hall. I went upstairs and I called you, but of course you didn’t hear out in the garden. I picked it up.” Little Anne produced from the pocket in her skirt, of which she was inordinately proud, a sheet of paper, folded small. She spread it out on her knee and carefully smoothed it; Anne saw that it was an ordinary sheet of letter paper, unruled, covered with Richard Latham’s microscopic characters, running together in places, straggling apart in others, lines of irregular length, verses. Anne hesitated a moment; she probably had already copied these verses, dictated to her by Richard. They could not be anything that he did not wish her to see. If it had been something in prose form she would not have looked at it, fearing it might be a letter not intended for her eyes, but verses written by him belonged to her official care. “May I see, little Anne?” she asked, and took the paper. She knew at once that these were not verses that she had ever copied. She read them with difficulty in deciphering them, with greater difficulty in controlling the terror, actual terror, which they inspired in her. FOR ANNE “_There is a song I must not sing Which sings itself the livelong day; There is a plea I must not bring Which ev’ry breath I draw must pray; There is a word past uttering The only word my tongue would say: Oh, sweetest, fairest, dearest, best, in silence I must go my way!_ _Oh, blinded eyes deprived of light; Oh, hunger that is never fed; Oh, love that yearns, denied the right To kiss a tress upon that head; Oh, broken life, creep far from sight To hide where pity makes thy bed For glory, fame, and wealth are stones to me, a beggar craving bread._” “I love poetry,” hinted little Anne, but checked herself when she saw the elder Anne’s face. It had turned quite white, tears stood in her dark eyes, her lips quivered. “Oh, little Anne, what can it mean? Who is it? Why didn’t I have it to copy?” Anne murmured. “Oh, he mustn’t know we read it!” “I didn’t,” said little Anne, reproachfully, and Anne kissed her, grateful that the child made her smile. “Promise me on your honour, little Anne, that you will never speak to any one of having found these verses. Promise! And remember that a promise is a sacred thing, faithfully to be kept,” she said. “I never in this world break my promises,” declared little Anne, proudly, but truthfully. “I promise! Not even Mother?” “You may tell her that you found the verses, but that no one is to know it; you can say that you did not know what they were like,” Anne said, wisely deciding that this concession would be a safety valve to little Anne’s unimpeachable honour.