Linda paled, flushed, looked down nervously, shuffled the letters and papers she held. "What do you mean?" she asked at last.
"There's only one Verlinda Talbot, isn't there? Unless someone has borrowed your very pretty and unusual name. Look at this." He thrust his hand into his coat pocket and drew forth a paper, opened the sheet and pointed out the following:
THE MARCHING PINES
Up from the hill-slope and over the ridge
An army is coming of marching pines.
The cloud-shadows lurking, lie low on the bridge
Wrought out by the moonbeams in delicate lines.
They march from the meadow land over the snow
With bayonets pointed, a solid phalanx,
Save where, on their outlying edges, they show
A few timid stragglers who've broken the ranks.
And down in the field, set in orderly rows
Are wigwams, one sees by the light of the moon.
Hark! Hark! Does a war-whoop discover the foes?
From out of the marsh comes the laugh of a loon.
Verlinda Talbot.
"Here, let me take your things," said the young man gently as he perceived by her shaking hands and changing color that she was agitated. He watched her read the lines through and as she raised sweet questioning eyes, he bit his lip and drew in his breath quickly and sharply. "I like it, Linda," he said as she folded the paper and handed it back to him. "How did you manage to do it? I am as proud as can be of you."
"Are you really, Berk? That is very nice of you. To think you saw it before I did. Why I didn't even know they were going to print it."