She next figures as a governess in the family of a Mrs. Featherstone of Bracklin Castle. There was a merry dance for adieu the night she was to leave, but, like Cinderella, she danced too long: the hour sounded, and Sydney was hurried into the coach in a white muslin dress, pink silk stockings and slippers of the same hue, while Molly, the faithful old servant, insisted on wrapping her darling in her own warm cloak and ungainly headgear. Being ushered in this plight into a handsome drawing-room, there was a general titter at her grotesque appearance, but she told her story in her own captivating way until they screamed with laughter--not at her now, but with her--and she was "carried off to an exquisite suite of rooms--a study, bedroom and bath-room, with a roaring turf fire, open piano and lots of books;" and after dinner, where she was toasted, she sang several songs, which had an immense effect, and the evening ended with a jig, her hosts regretting that they had no spectators besides the servants. This, her first jig out of the school-room, she contrasts with her last one in public, when invited by the duchess of Northumberland to dance with Lord George Hill. She accepted the challenge from the two best jig-dancers in the country, Lord George and Sir Philip Crampton, and had the triumph of flooring them both. Her first novel, _St. Clair_, was now completed. She had kept the writing of it a profound secret, and one morning the young author, full of ambitious dreams, borrowed the cook's market-bonnet and cloak and sallied out to seek her fortune. Before going far she saw over a shop-door "T. Smith, Printer and Bookseller," and ventured in. It was some minutes before T. Smith made his appearance, and when he did so he had a razor in one hand, a towel in the other, and only one side of his face shaved. After hearing her errand he told her, good-naturedly, that he did not publish novels, and sent her to Brown. Brown wanted his breakfast, and was not anxious for a girl's manuscript; but his wife persuaded him to promise to look it over; and, elated with success, Sydney ran back, forgetting to leave any address, and never heard of her first venture till, taking up a book in a friend's parlor, it proved to be her own. It had a good sale, and was translated into German, with a biographical notice which stated that the young author had strangled herself with an embroidered handkerchief in an agony of despair and unrequited love. _The Sorrows of Werther_ was her model, but with a deal of stuff and sentimentality there was the promise of better things. "In all her early works her characters indulge in wonderful digressions, historical, astronomical and metaphysical, in the midst of terrible emergencies where danger, despair and unspeakable catastrophes are imminent and impending. No matter what laceration of their finest feelings they may be suffering, they always have their learning at command, and never fail to make quotations from