troublesome in thus applying to you, believe me to remain your sincerely obliged, “Rose Arundel. “P.S.--I have enclosed a little prose sketch with the verses, but I am _quite sure_ you will not like that. Perhaps, if Lewis has not left you when this arrives, you will be so very kind as not to say any thing to him about it, as he would be sure to laugh at me.” When Rose had finished this epistle she felt that she had done something towards attaining the object she had at heart, and went to bed feeling more happy than she had done since the receipt of Lewis’s letter. Straightway falling asleep, she dreamt that she was introduced to Mr. Murray, who offered her £100 to write a short biographical memoir of General Grant for the “Quarterly Review.” CHAPTER XIV.--PRESENTS TOM BRACY IN A NEW AND INTERESTING ASPECT. Three days passed by, and still poor Rose received no answer to her letter, but remained a prey to alternate hopes and fears and all “The gnawing torture of an anxious mind.” On the fourth arrived the following characteristic note:-- “My dear Miss Arundel,--I dare say you’ve been abusing me like a pick-pocket; at least I must have appeared to you deserving of such abuse, for treating your request so cavalierly; but the fact is, I have been down in a Cornish tin mine for the last two days, and only received your packet on my arrival in town, an hour ago. And now to business. I don’t set up for a judge of poetry, though I know what pleases me and what doesn’t (I should be a donkey if I did not, you’ll say); for instance, the present school of ‘suggestive’ poetry doesn’t suit me at all. But then I have an old-fashioned prejudice in favour of understanding what I read, and calling a railway locomotive a ‘_resonant steam eagle_,’ for instance, does not tend to simplify literature; the only thing such phrases ‘suggest’ to me is that it would be a great deal better if the authors were content to stick to plain English, and when they have such inexpressibly grand ideas, not to trouble themselves to express them at all. Your verses have at least one good point in them--they are so worded that a plain man may understand them; in fact, all that I have yet read I like--the feeling is invariably pure, true, and beautiful (your heart’s in the right place, and no mistake); the language is well chosen, and sometimes eloquent; there are, of course, plenty of places where it becomes weak and young lady-like, but that was only to be expected. We can’t all be men, unfortunately. I could not help laughing when you ‘supposed I knew’ all the booksellers and publishers in London, Heaven forbid! for in that case I should have a very miscellaneous acquaintance. However, I do know several, and I will go the first thing to-morrow morning and consult one of them--a gentleman on whose judgment I can rely as to what will be the most advisable course for us to pursue. I say _us_, because, as I don’t