The Poet

“The lonesomeness of that little girl over there is becoming painful,” said the Poet from his chair by the hedge. “I can’t make out whether she’s too dressed up to play or whether it’s only shyness.”

“Poor Marjorie!” murmured Mrs. Waring. “We’ve all coaxed her to play, but she won’t budge. By the way, that’s one of the saddest cases we’ve had; it’s heartbreaking, discouraging. Little waifs like Marjorie, whose fathers and mothers can’t hit it off, don’t have a fair chance,—they are handicapped from the start.—Oh, I thought you knew; that’s the Redfields’ little girl.”

The Poet gazed with a new intentness at the dark-haired child of five who stood rigidly at the end of the pergola with her hands clasped behind her back. The Poet All the People Loved was a philosopher also, but his philosophy was not quite equal to forecasting the destiny of little Marjorie.

“Children,” he observed, “should not be left on the temple steps when the pillars of society crack and rock; the good fairies ought to carry them out of harm’s way. Little Marjorie looks as though she had never smiled.” And then he murmured with characteristic self-mockery,—

“Oh, little child that never smiled—

Somebody might build a poem around that line, but I hope nobody ever will! If that child doesn’t stop looking that way, I shall have to cry or crawl over there on my knees and ride her pickaback.”

Mrs. Waring’s two daughters had been leading the children in a march and dance that now broke up in a romp; and the garden echoed with gleeful laughter. The spell of restraint was broken, and the children began initiating games of their own choosing; but Marjorie stood stolidly gazing at them as though they were of another species. Her nurse, having failed to interest her sad-eyed charge in the games that were delighting the other children, had withdrawn, leaving Marjorie to her own devices.