"
As I went back to the house, bearing my findings, I met my little boy
friend. He tried not to see what I carried.
"I gathered these from the apple trees," I said, holding out the verses.
"They are poems."
He made no motion to take the "poems." His eyes danced. But neither then
did he say nor since has he said that the verses were his; that he was
the Orlando who had caused them to grow upon the trees.
Another child of my acquaintance, a little girl, I discovered in an even
sweeter game for "playing alone." She chanced to call upon me one
afternoon just as I was taking from its wrappings an _edition de luxe_
of "Pippa Passes." Her joy in the exquisite illustrations with which the
book was embellished even exceeded mine.
"Is the story in the book as lovely as the pictures?" she queried.
"Yes," I assured her.
Then, at her urgent request, I told her the tale of the "little black-
eyed pretty singing Felippa"; of her "single day," and of her singing
that "righted all again" on that holiday in Asolo.
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