She tried to forget her ill health and weariness, and some of her letters at this time were so bright and amusing, that we see how well she succeeded in throwing herself into the lives of those around her. At last she was well enough to be moved in an invalid carriage with "a thousand springs" to London, in short journeys of twenty miles a day. There for seven long years she lived in one large, but partly darkened room, seeing only her own family and a few special friends. Her poems were sad, beautiful, and very tender; never once does she allude in words to the terrible blow which had swept so much sunshine and happiness from her young life, but her writings are full now of wild utterances and passionate cries, now calming down into sleepy lullabies for the little children she had such sympathy with. She did not put her name to many of her works, but readers were startled from time to time by the wonderful new poems, until at last they were traced to the sick room of Elizabeth Barrett. In her sick room lived "Flush," a little dog given her by a friend; he was dark brown with long silken ears and hazel eyes, but, better than these, such a faithful heart, and "... of _thee_ it shall be said, This dog watched beside a bed Day and night unweary; Watched within a curtained room, Where no sunbeam brake the gloom Round the sick and dreary." He would push his nose into her pale, thin hand, and lie content for hours, till the quick tears of his mistress would sometimes drop on to his glossy head, and he would spring up eagerly, as if to share the trouble if he only could. Here is a story about Flush which shows his devotion. The little terrier was stolen, and his mistress shed many tears for her lost favourite. She was accused of being "childish," but she could not help it. "Flushie is my friend, my companion, and loves me better than he loves the sunshine without," she cried. At last the thief was found, and he gave up the dog for some money, saying, "You had better give your dog something to eat, for he has tasted nothing for three days!" But Flush was too happy to eat; he shrank away from the plate of food which was given him, and laid down his head on his mistress's shoulder. "He is worth loving, is he not?" asked Elizabeth Barrett, when she had told this story to a friend. One of her best-known poems is "The Cry of the Children." For the little overworked children in the large factories her human heart was stirred. She knew what a life they led from early morning till late at night, amid the rushing of the great iron wheels, or working underground in the damp and dark, and she could not be silent.