"I thought it very serious." "You don't do it now, do you ?" asked Mrs.Goddard, looking up at him quietly.
"Oh no--a man's ideals change so much, you know," answered John, who felt he had been foolishly betrayed into telling his story, and hated to be laughed at.
"I am very glad of that.

How long are you going to stay here, Mr.Short ?" "Until New Year's Day, I think," he answered.

"Perhaps you will have time to forget about the poetry before I go." "I don't know why," said Mrs.Goddard, noticing his hurt tone.

"I think it was very pretty--I mean the way you did it.

You must be a born poet--to write verses to a person you did not know and had only seen once!" "It is much easier than writing verses to moral abstractions one has never seen at all," explained John, who was easily pacified.