Page:A Literary Courtship (1893).pdf/46

 let the Sandersons' letter wait while he opened the Colorado one.

"Poems, by Jove!" he cried, and his face fell. "Ten to one they're trash."

As he spoke a half-sheet slipped to the floor and I picked it up. It was a poem to "The Solitary Sandpiper," beginning:

I thought the verses mighty good, and I was pleased, afterward, when I found that John liked them too.

"Are they her poems?" I asked.

"She says not," he growled, "but here, I will read you what she writes." Which he proceeded to do, with occasional comments thrown in.

The letter began, "My dear Miss Lamb," without any allusion to the name being assumed, which I thought in very good taste.

The letter went on as follows:

"How you will regret the courtesy with which you responded to my first letter, when you find