"Guess who!"
"Why, how should _I_----?"
"Guess!" she cried peremptorily, in a tone of bitter derision. "You won't?
Well, it's Carolyn--our poor, silly Carolyn! And what do you suppose she
has started in to do? She is writing an epitha--an epithal----"
"----amium," contributed Cope. "An epithala-mium."
"Yes, an epithala-mium!" repeated Hortense, with an outburst of jarring
laughter. "Isn't she absurd! Isn't she ridiculous!"
"Is she? Why, it seems to me a delicate attention, a very sweet thought."
If Carolyn could make anything out of Amy--and of George--why, let her do
it.
"You _like_ her poetry!" cried Hortense in a high, strained voice.
"You enjoy her epithalamiums, and her--sonnets...."
Cope flushed and began to grow impatient. "She is a sweet girl," he said;
"and if she wishes to write verse she is quite within her rights."
"'Sweet'! There you go again! 'Sweet'--twice. She ought to know!"
"Perhaps she does know. Everybody else knows."
"And perhaps she doesn't!" cried Hortense. "Tell her! Tell her!"
Cope stared. "She is a sweet girl," he repeated; "and she has been filling
very discreetly a somewhat difficult position----"
He knew something of the suppressed bitterness which, in subordinate
places, was often the lot of the pen.
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