Legend Author:Clemence Dane Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: green, green grass, and the shining waters and the flowers with their sweet smell, and the singing birds and the hum of the little things of the air. All beauty ... more »was summed up in him: he was food to her and sunshine and music: he was her absolute good: and she thought that someone ought to see that his socks were mended properly, for there was a great ladder down one ankle, darned with wrong-coloured wool. "Well?" She shut the book. " I like it," said the Baxter girl stubbornly. Mr. Flood twisted uneasily in his seat. " Oh, pretty, of course. Of course it's pleasant enough in a way. But Madala oughtn't to be pretty. Think of the stuff she can do." " But can't you see," Miss Howe broke in, " how it parodies the slush and sugar school ? " Anita shook her head. " She used another manner when she was ironical. I wish you were right. Oh, you may be — I must consider — but I'm afraid that she is in earnest. That phrase now —' The green, green grass,' (why double the adjective?) ' the shining waters, the singing birds '— pitiful! And that anti-climax —' He was her absolute good: and she thought that someone ought to see that his socks were mended properly.' I ask you — is it art? " " Not as serious work, of course," said Miss Howe, but " " I wish I could think so," said Anita. "Well, I wish I could do it," said the Baxter girl. " What do you say, Jenny? " But it had brought back the country to me. It had brought back home. I hadn't anything to sajr to them. " And she wouldn't discuss it, you know. She came in after supper that night, just as I was reading the last chapter. It had only been out a day. There she sat, where you are now, Lila, smiling, with her hands in her lap and her eyes fixed on her hands, waiting for me to finish." " Oh —" Miss Ho...« less