"'Haughty solitudes'!" Christine derided.

Mrs. Bogardus sighed with impatience, and Moya's face became set. "Well,
here he quotes again," she haughtily resumed. "Anybody who is tired of
this can be excused. Emerson won't mind, and I'm sure Paul won't!" She
looked a mute apology to Paul's mother, who smiled and said, "Go on, dear.
I don't read Emerson either, but I like him when Paul reads him for me."

"Well, I warn you there is an awful lot of him here!" Moya's voice was a
trifle husky as she read on.

"Old as Jove,
Old as Love'"

"I thought Love was young!"--Christine in a whisper aside.

"'Who of me
Tells the pedigree?
Only the mountains old,
Only the waters cold,
Only the moon and stars,
My coevals are.'"

Moya sighed, and sank into prose again. "There is a gaudy yellow moss in
these woods that flecks the straight and mournful tree-trunks like a
wandering glint of sunlight; and there is a crepe-like black moss that
hangs funeral scarfs upon the boughs, as if there had been a death in the
forest, and the trees were in line for the burial procession. The grating
of our voices on this supreme silence reminds one of 'Why will you still
be talking, Monsieur Benedick?--nobody marks you.'