“What shall we do now, papa?” said Alice when they had finished.  “We won’t be going home for a little while.”

The judge looked at his watch.  “Twenty minutes past five:  we shall start at six.  Well, I propose that each member of the company composes, within the space of ten minutes, four lines of verse descriptive of the scenery.  I have brought pencils and paper; and the best writer shall have my gold pencil-case to him or her self.”

There was a general exclamation, and each one declared it impossible to perform such a feat.

“Try,” said the judge briefly; and he passed round the pencils and the sheets of paper.  Then he laid his watch on the cloth, and gave the signal.  You would have laughed at the utter stillness then, and at the perplexity on each face.  Slowly the hands moved round, till the ten minutes were up, and the judge cried halt.

“You read then, judge,” said Mr. Goldthwaite; “begin with your own.”

“Well, here I am,” said the judge with a very comical smile, and he read slowly and distinctly:—­

“It seems to me that if you go
Enjoyment for to seek,
You’ll find out all you want and more
Up here on Pendle Peak.”

A shout of laughter greeted this effusion, and the judge pretended to be highly offended.

“I object to the ‘for’ in the second line,” said Mr. Goldthwaite.

“Do you think I don’t know it has no business there?” said the judge.  “But I couldn’t get it to rhyme, so I was obliged to put in something.  It is not bad for an old fellow who never made two lines rhyme before in his life.  Come then, Frank, pass up yours.”

“To read a page from Nature’s book,
In this deep solitude,
Uplifts the heart in purer aims,
And leads us nearer God.”

“True, Frank,” said the judge solemnly.  “You have beaten me hollow anyway.—­Now, Carrie.”

“Mine is very poor indeed, Judge Keane,” said Carrie, as she passed up her slip.  “Like yours it is my first attempt.”

“The beauty of the hills,
So calm, so free, so bright,
Can dim my eyes with tears,
And fill me with delight.”

“Very good” was the verdict; and then Miss Keane reluctantly gave up her paper.

“How still it is!  No rude discord
Falls on the ear;
We feel all earthly thoughts and aims
Must vanish here.”

That also was pronounced “very good,” and Judge Keane feared he should have some difficulty in adjudicating the prize.  Mr. George Keane’s was the next.

“I never wrote a poem, but since
You will not be refused,
I do declare I don’t know how,
And beg to be excused.”

“You have no chance anyway, George,” said his father, laughing with the rest.  “It has not the remotest reference to the subject in hand.—­Well, Lucy.”

“Mine last, please,” pleaded Lucy.

So the judge took the paper from Minnie’s hand and read,—­