Page:My mortal enemy - 1926.djvu/96

 leather, and on the fly-leaf, in faint violet ink, was an inscription, “To Myra Driscoll from Oswald,” dated 1876.

My friend lay still, with her eyes closed, and occasionally one of those anachronistic tears gathered on her lashes and fell on the pillow, making a little grey spot. Often she took the verse out of my mouth and finished it herself.

“Look for a little short one, about the flower that grows on the suicide’s grave, die Armesünderblum’, the poor-sinner’s-flower. Oh, that’s the flower for me, Nellie; die Arme—sünder—blum’!” She drew the word out until it was a poem in itself.

“Come, dear,” she said presently, when I put down the book, “you don’t really like this new verse that’s going round, ugly lines about ugly people and common feelings—you don’t really?”

When I reminded her that she liked Walt Whitman, she chuckled slyly. “Does that save me? Can I get into your new Parnassus on that dirty old man? I suppose I ought to be glad of