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Kit smiled. His aunt would not have a telephone in her house, but she was constantly sending Minerva to telephone a message from the near-by drug store.

“And what of it?” Miss Carrington would defend herself. “Is sending Minerva seven times seventy trips a day equal to one’s being on the ragged edge, dreading to be called at any hour?”

Now Kit smiled at his aunt, as she awaited his reply, and said:

“I’m not up in Mr. Latham’s work myself, Aunt Anne. But then I’m far down in lots of poets.”

“We’ll hope you will come to them,” returned his aunt. “From this review it appears that we should be immensely proud of Latham; by and by, apparently, pilgrims will come to Cleavedge to pick leaves from the ivy on his wall. Has he a wall? And ivy? Someone, it seems, wrote Richard Latham lately to ask for the genesis of one of his poems, also ‛what he meant by’ a certain stanza. That is true greatness, Kit; to get inquiries as to the meaning of a poem! There is a letter published here, setting the anxious correspondent at rest. It speaks with authority for Mr. Latham, but is not written by him. It is not badly expressed, rather a nice letter. Signed A. D. I wonder what that stands for—when it isn’t Anno Domini?”