Had Katie; not illiterate; nor of those Who dabbling in the fount of fictive tears,

And nursed by mealy-mouth'd philanthropies,

Divorce the Feeling from her mate the Deed.

'She told me. She and James had quarrell'd. Why?

What cause of quarrel? None, she said,

no cause;

James had no cause: but when I prest the

cause,

I learnt that James had flickering jealousies

Which anger'd her. Who anger'd James? I said.

But Katie snatch'd her eyes at once from mine,

And sketching with her slender pointed

foot.

Some figure like a wizard pentagram
On garden gravel, let my query pass
Unclaim'd, in flushing silence, till I ask'd
If James were coming. "Coming every
day,"

She answer'd, "ever longing to explain,
But evermore her father came across
With some long-winded tale, and broke

him short;

And James departed vext with him and her."

How could I help her? "Would I-was it wrong?"

(Claspt hands and that petitionary grace Of sweet seventeen subdued me ere she

spoke)

"O would I take her father for one hour, For one half-hour, and let him talk to me!"

And even while she spoke, I saw where

James

Made toward us, like a wader in the surf, Beyond the brook, waist-deep in meadow

sweet.

‘O Katie, what I suffer'd for your sake! For in I went, and call'd old Philip out To show the farm: full willingly he rose : He led me thro' the short sweet-smelling lanes

Of his wheat-suburb, babbling as he went. He praised his land, his horses, his machines;

He praised his ploughs, his cows, his hogs, his dogs;

He praised his hens, his geese, his guineahens;

His pigeons, who in session on their roofs Approved him, bowing at their own de

serts:

Then from the plaintive mother's teat he took

Her blind and shuddering puppies, nam

ing each,

And naming those, his friends, for whom they were:

Then crost the common into Darnley chase

To show Sir Arthur's deer. In copse and fern

Twinkled the innumerable ear and tail. Then, seated on a serpent-rooted beech, He pointed out a pasturing colt, and said : "That was the four-year-old I sold the

Squire."

And there he told a long long-winded tale Of how the Squire had seen the colt at

grass,

And how it was the thing his daughter

wish'd,

And how he sent the bailiff to the farm To learn the price, and what the price he

ask'd,

And how the bailiff swore that he was mad,