"Give us a recitation, then," persisted Medora; "or tell us a story. Or
make up"--here she indulged herself in an airily imperious flight--"a story
of your own on the spot."
A trifling request, truly. But----
"Heavens!" said Cope. "I am not an author--still less an
_improvvisatore_."
"I am sure you could be," returned Medora fondly. "Just try."
Cope sat down again and began to run his eye uncomfortably about the room,
as if dredging the air for an idea. Behind one corner of a mirror was a
large bunch of drying leaves. They had been brought in from the sand dunes
as a decorative souvenir of the autumn, and had kept their place through
mere inertia: an oak bough, once crimson and russet; a convoluted length of
bittersweet, to which a few split berries still clung; and a branch of
sassafras, with its intriguing variety of leaves--a branch selected, in
fact, because it gave, within narrow compass, the plant's entire scope and
repertoire as to foliage.
Cope caught at the sassafras as a falling balloonist catches at his
parachute.
"Well," he said, still reluctant and fumbling, "perhaps I can devise a
legend: the Legend, let us say, of the Sassafras Bush.
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