Olive, sitting sewing by the window, was, naturally, somewhat startled. “Mercy on us, Rachel!” she exclaimed. “What IS it?” “Look!” cried the housekeeper, pointing to the contribution in the “Poets' Corner” as Queen Isabella may have pointed at the evidence of her proteges discovery of a new world. “LOOK!” Mrs. Snow looked, read the verses to herself, and then aloud. “Why, I declare, they're real sort of pretty, ain't they?” she exclaimed, in astonished admiration. “Pretty! They're perfectly elegant! And right here in the paper for all hands to see. Ain't you PROUD of him, Mrs. Snow?” Olive had been growing more and more proud of her handsome grandson ever since his arrival. She was prouder still now and said so. Rachel nodded, triumphantly. “He'll be a Robert Penfold afore he dies, or I miss MY guess!” she declared. She showed it to feminine acquaintances all over town, and Olive, when callers came, took pains to see that a copy of the Item, folded with the “Poets' Corner” uppermost, lay on the center table. Customers, dropping in at the office, occasionally mentioned the poem to its author. “See you had a piece in the Item, Al,” was their usual way of referring to it. “Pretty cute piece 'twas, too, seemed to me. Say, that girl of yours must have SOME spring bunnit. Ho, ho!” Issachar deigned to express approval, approval qualified with discerning criticism of course, but approval nevertheless. “Pretty good piece, Al,” he observed. “Pretty good. Glad to see you done so well. Course you made one little mistake, but 'twan't a very big one. That part where you said--What was it, now? Where'd I put that piece of poetry? Oh, yes, here 'tis! Where you said--er--er-- 'It floats upon her golden curls As froth upon the wave.' Now of course nothin'--a hat or nothin' else--is goin' to float on top of a person's head. Froth floatin', that's all right, you understand; but even if you took froth right out of the water and slapped it up onto anybody's hair 'twouldn't FLOAT up there. If you'd said, 'It SETS up onto her golden curls, Same as froth sets on top of a wave.' that would have been all right and true. But there, don't feel bad about it. It's only a little mistake, same as anybody's liable to make. Nine persons out of ten wouldn't have noticed it. I'm extry partic'lar, I presume likely. I'm findin' mistakes like that all the time.” Laban's comment was less critical, perhaps, but more reserved. “It's pretty good, Al,” he said. “Yes--er--yes, sir, it's pretty good. It ain't all new, there's some of it that's been written before, but I rather guess that might have been said about Shakespeare's poetry when he fust commenced. It's pretty good, Al. Yes--yes, yes. It is so.” Albert was inclined to resent the qualified strain in the bookkeeper's praise. He was tempted to be sarcastic. “Well,” he observed, “of course you've read so much real poetry that you ought to know.”