"Yes; but what has that _r_, all alone by itself, to do with it?"
"Why, it's my _proof_. You see I write down my word, and rub out each letter of it as I use it in picking out my new words, so if none are left, my anagram is complete."
"So you found an extra _r_, instead of an extra axe, in your way? Well, that _is_ rather trying; but then there are plenty of more words, and it isn't much work to get them out. You have a capital way. Besides, that wouldn't have been so very good a one. You know 'Aunt Sue' says the word and the sentence should bear some relation to each other. Now, if Artaxerxes had been a famous wood-cutter instead of a Persian king, it might have been too bad."
"But wasn't he a warrior, too and mightn't they be battle-axes?"
Mary admitted the force of this, with a smile, as she went on to say:
"When we see such anagrams as 'astronomers--no more stars,' and 'parishioners--I hire parsons,' there is a certain sense of fitness that produces all the pleasure I can find in an anagram."
"I know they're better; but, then, not half of them _do_ mean anything. _I_ never could make such ones."
"I should try, if I made them out at all, to have them just right. You must remember it takes some _patience_ to _get_ them, as well as to _make_ them. You want the satisfaction of feeling paid when you're through."
"Patience! I should think it did!" said Bess, laughing and repeating, "Oh, Sam, cut my pen!" in a very comical manner. "If _that_ didn't take the patience of Job! And what did it _mean_, after all? I'm sure Webster don't know! I think they ought to be _fair_, at least!"
"So do I," said Mary, laughing at Bessie's earnestness. "Now try the word _homestead_, Bess, and see what you can make of that."
"I'm not quite sure; I was running it over in my _mind_ to-day; but I had no slate to prove my canceling correct."
"Oh, so it will," said Bess, hastily putting down the letters; "and you know they do eat hams at homesteads!" Then Bess began drawing the tip of her forefinger slowly through each letter, repeating slowly, "do e-a-t-h- --_There, now_, that's worse than Artaxerxes! If that _e_ was only an _a_!"
Mary looked on the slate a moment, and then said, pleasantly, "But you see it isn't!"
