“You do?” Miss Twining started to get up, then sat down again.  “I wonder if you would care for my verses?” she hesitated.  “You could have a copy as well as not.”  Her soft eyes rested on Polly’s face.

“Oh, I should love them—­I know I should!” Polly declared.

Miss Twining went over to her closet and stooped to a trunk at the end.

“There!” she said, putting in Polly’s hand a small, cloth-bound volume neatly lettered, “Hilltop Days.”

The girl opened it at random.  Her eye caught a title, and she read the poem through.

“That is beautiful!” she cried impulsively.

“Which one is it?” asked the childlike author.

“‘A Winter Brook.’”

“Oh, yes!  I like that myself.”

“What lovely meter you write!” praised Polly.  “The lines just sing themselves along.”

“Do they?  The publishers told me the meter was good.  I guess my ear wouldn’t let me have it any other way.”

“Do you play or sing?” queried Polly.

“I used to—­before we lost our money.  Since then I haven’t had any piano.”

“That must have been hard to give up!” Tears sprang to Polly’s eyes.

“Yes, it was hard, but giving up a piano isn’t the worst thing in the world.”

“No,” was the absent response.  Polly was turning the leaves of the book, and she stopped as a line caught her fancy.  Her smile came quickly as she read.

“Miss Twining!” she exclaimed, “I am so astonished to think you can write such lovely, lovely poems!  Why, the June Holiday Home ought to be proud of you!”

“Oh, Polly!” The little woman blushed happily.

“Well, only real poets can write like this!  If people knew about them I’m sure the book would sell.  The poems that Mr. Parcell ends off his sermons with aren’t half as good as these!”

Miss Twining smiled.  “I wonder what made you think of him.  Do you know—­I never told this to a soul before—­I have wished and wished that he would come across one of mine some day and like it so well that he would put it into a sermon!  Oh, how I have wished that!  I have even prayed about it!  Seems to me it would be the best of anything I could hope to have on earth, to sit there in church and hear him repeat something of mine!—­There!  I’m foolish to tell you that!  You’ll think me a vain old woman!”

“No, I shall not!” cried Polly.  “I should like it ’most as well as you would!  It would be a beautiful happening.  And probably he would if he knew them.  Did you ever give him a book?”

“Oh, no, indeed!  I shouldn’t dare!”

“Why not?  He is very nice to talk with.”

“Yes, I know.  He calls on me every year or two.  I like him.”

“I do, and I want him to read your poems.  Do you mind if I take this home to show to father and mother?  They love poetry.—­And then I’ll mid a way for Mr. Parcell to see it!”