Unconscious of the small inward drama so near at hand, the playwright proceeded with his composition. "'Sighing his heart out,'" he mused. "Nay, that were too strong a touch for Jacques. Lighter--lighter." Then, after a moment of thought: "Ay--ay!" he chuckled. "'Sighing like furnace'--poor Fenton! How like a very furnace in his dolor! Yet did he justice to the Canary. So--so! To go back now: "Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace with a woful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow." 'Twill pass, in sooth, 'twill pass!" Lightly Phoebe climbed onto the bench and peeped over the back. She looked down sidewise upon the author, who was writing rapidly in an illegible hand upon one of his paper slips. There was the head so familiar to us all--the domelike brow, the long hair hanging over the ears. This she could see, but of his face only the outline of his left cheek was visible. Strange and unexpected to herself was the light-hearted calm with which, now that she really saw him, she could contemplate the great poet. He ceased writing and leaned against the back, gazing straight ahead. "The third age past, what then? Why the soldier, i' faith--the soldier----" "Full of strange oaths" came a mischievous whisper from an invisible source-- "and bearded like the pard. Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth." For a moment the poet sat as though paralyzed with astonishment. Then rising, he turned and faced the daring girl. Now she saw the face so well remembered and yet how little known before. Round it was and smooth, save for the small, well-trimmed mustache above the beautifully moulded mouth and chin--sensitive yet firm. But above all, the splendid eyes! Eyes of uncertain color that seemed to Phoebe mirrors of universal life, yet just now full of a perplexed admiration. For she was herself the centre of a picture well fitted to arrest a poet's attention. Her merry face was peering over the smooth white stone, with four pink finger-tips on each side clinging for greater security. Behind her a cherry-tree was dropping its snowy blossoms, and two or three had fallen unheeded upon her wavy brown hair, making a charming frame for the young eyes and tender lips whose smiling harmony seemed to sing with arrant roguishness. With a trilling laugh, half-suppressed, she spoke at last. "A penny for your thoughts, Master Shakespeare!" she said. The mood of the astonished player had quickly yielded to the girl's compelling smile, and his fine lips opened upon a firm line of teeth. "'Show me first your penny,'" he quoted. "I'll owe you it." He laughed and shook his head. "That would I not my thoughts, damsel." "Pay them, then. Pay straightway!" she pouted, "and see the account be fair."