"Why, what are aunts good for but to be called names?" was the amiable response. "But now listen, Phoebe. I am going to read you a piece of my poetry. You see, our old church is dedicated to Saint Ursula; and there is an image in the church, which they say is Saint Ursula--it has such a charming face! Madam doesn't think 'tis charming, but I do. So you see, this poem is to that image." Phoebe looked rather puzzled, but did not answer. "Now, I would have you criticise, Phoebe," said Rhoda, condescendingly, using a word she had picked up from one of her grandfather's books. "I don't know what that is," said Phoebe. "Well, it means, if you hear anything you don't like, say so." "Very well," replied Phoebe, quietly. And Rhoda began to read, with the style of a rhetorician--as she supposed-- "Step softly, nearer as ye tread To this shrine of the royal dead! This Abbey's hallowed unto one, Daughter of Britain's ancient throne,-- History names her one sole thing, The daughter of a British King." Rhoda paused, and looked at her cousin--ostensibly for criticism, really for admiration. If Phoebe had said exactly what she thought, it would have been that her ear was cruelly outraged: but Phoebe was not accustomed to the sharp speeches which passed for wit with Rhoda. She fell back on a matter of fact. "Does history say nothing more about her?" "Of course it does! It says the Vandals martyred her. Phoebe, you can't criticise poetry as if it were prose." It struck Phoebe that Rhoda's poetry was very like prose; but she said meekly, "Please go on. I ask your pardon." So Rhoda went on-- "Her glorious line has passed away-- The wild dream of a by-gone day! We know not from what throne she sprang, Britain is silent in her song--" "What's the matter?" asked Rhoda, interrupting herself. "I ask your pardon," said Phoebe again. "But--will _song_ do with _sprang_? And if Ursula was a real person, as I thought she had been, she wasn't a wild dream, was she?" "Phoebe, I do believe you haven't a bit of taste!" said Rhoda. "I'll try you with one more verse, and then-- "O wake her not! Ages have passed Since her fair eyelids closed at last." "I should think, then, you would find it difficult to wake her," remarked Phoebe: but Rhoda went on as if she had not heard it,-- "For twice six hundred years, 'tis said, Hath rested 'neath yon tomb her head,-- That head which soft reposed of old On couch of satin and of gold." "Dear!" was Phoebe's comment. "I didn't know they had satin sofas twelve hundred years ago." "'Tis no earthly use reading poetry to you!" exclaimed Rhoda, throwing down the book. "You haven't one bit of feeling for it, no more than if it were a sermon I was reading! Tie your hood on, and make haste, and we'll go and see the Maidens."