"The father had practically supported the baby in the water for four days--the baby was less than a year old--and the mother had nursed him till she died. For two days, the man said, with nothing to eat herself. She and he, they had practically killed themselves for the baby boy. She was a Spanish woman--a lady. The father died aboard Captain Blaise's ship. He was an American who had married abroad without consulting his father, and the old gentleman made such a fuss about it that the young man had stayed away--intended to remain away and renounce his heritage; but at last the father had sent for him, and he was then on his way home. But you should have heard Captain Blaise tell it. He made us feel that mother's love for her baby, that mother who was dead before he picked her up, and made us feel, too, what a man the father was. What an actor he is! I tried not to cry, but I did. But let me see--what have you there?" I showed her some things. She picked up the nearest and read it aloud: "I was walking down the glen-- O my heart!--on a summer's day. He passed me by, my gentleman-- Would I had never seen the day! "True love can neither hate nor scorn, And ne'er will true love pass away. And his hair was silk as tasselled corn, My heart alack--that summer's day! "Oh, he wore plumes in his broad hat And jewelled buckles on his shoon, And O, the sparkle in his eye! And yet his love could die so soon!" "H-m. Suggests satin breeches and hair-powder, men who could navigate a ball-room floor more safely than the Trades, doesn't it? Wherever did you get such notions?" I showed her a volume, one of Captain Blaise's, an anthology of the Elizabethan and Restoration poets. "I was trying to write like one of 'em," I explained. "And I thought it was pretty good." "I don't--a poor girl believing that Heaven made her kind for the high people's pleasure. No, I don't like that. And 'hair as silk as tasselled corn!' Do you like tasselled corn hair?" "Why, no--in a man. But my own being black--" "Hush! Black's best. No, you're not intended for that kind of writing." "But here--listen: "'True love can neither hate nor scorn, And ne'er will true love pass away.' "Don't you like that?" "Something like it's been said so often. Why don't you put it in your own words?" She took up another sheet. "What's this about?" "That's about a day and night at sea--a fine day in the Trades, such a day as to-day--and last night." "It _was_ a beautiful moon last night, wasn't it?" And she read to herself. Coming to the last stanza, she read aloud, unconsciously I think: "The stars gleamed out of a purple light, The moon trembled wide on the sea; The Western Ocean smiled that night-- Sweetheart, 'twas a dream of thee!"