“The lion would not leave her desolate,
But with her went along as a strong guard
Of her chast person, and a faithful mate
Of her sad troubles and misfortunes hard.”
I do not mean that Brenda could have repeated these lines after once hearing them, but certainly they made more impression on her than poetry did generally. Before the story had come to what the writer of fiction might call a climax, a voice that sounded much younger than that of the reader broke in on the poetry—
“Of course you don’t really believe that yourself, honest now. I can tell you that I don’t believe a lion ever did like that just because a girl was pretty. Why, he’d be sure to eat her up all the quicker. Don’t you think so?”
“No, I can’t say that I do.”
“You see, it’s like this. If she was real ugly the lion might be afraid of her for fear she’d hurt him. Almost any one would be afraid of an ugly person; but if she looked kind of nice and gentle, why he’d soon eat her, because he’d know that she would taste well.”
“Oh, Fritz, you are so practical. I really thought that you would like this.”
“I do, yes, I do, but I like ‘The Lays’ better. Horatius, now, he was alive, was n’t he? and Henry of Navarre. But you must n’t look so glum; you can’t expect a fellow to like stories about a faery queen as well as he would battles and things like that.”
“Yes, but there are battles in here; why I have to skip
