And to soothe and to solace, to help and to heal The sick world that leans on her. This was Lucile!'

"Oh, I wish you would go on," said Lucy, "and let me postpone the reading of my stupid story."

Nonsense, Lucy!" cried Mrs. Blair, who was very old-fashioned in her notions of poetry, and liked nothing of modern innovation, or that had not the cadence and rhythm of Pope. "I dare say that is very fine, but it is not very pleasing to my ear."

"Oh, mamma, it is Love and Wisdom made musical !"

"I know what Mrs. Blair means," said Grinlay Snarl. "She objects to the lines running into each other, and I think this habit, introduced by Byron, is carried to excess by Owen Meredith. It makes his poetry very difficult to read aloud; and much as I really admire and wish you to praise 'Lucile,' I will not disguise from you the fact that were I so disposed, I could stretch the young

poet on the rack. He has not only indulged in countless poetical licenses, but in a vast number of very unpoetical ones. The liberty he takes with the surname of his heroine, Madame de Nevers, in rhyming it to what it spells in English, is unpardonable; and though he has tried to excuse it in a foot-note in rhyme, I cannot forgive it. Then, too, he is occasionally too colloquial; even for the novel in rhyme, carried too far, it borders on doggerel; while, on the other hand, his metaphysics savour of Kant, I mean no pun, and are transcendental. Oh, I could cut him up finely!"

"And so one could 'Paradise Lost,' or 'Childe Harold,"" said Lucy. "The sun has specks.'

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Therefore," replied Grinlay Snarl, “amid so much bright, original, enthralling beauty, we will not dwell on a few defects; La Vallière limped, yet Louis XIV. adored her; Anne Boleyn had a deformed nail, yet the eighth Henry married her. Still, don't be afraid to

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point out any defects that strike you. A review that is all praise is like a dinner of nothing but sweet dishes; don't spare the cayenne and the lemon, Miss Lucy. And now for the History of the Pin;'" and he settled himself into the Fadladeen, while Lucy read the first part of her "History of a Pin, related by itself."

CHAPTER V.

LUCY'S STORY.

I AM a member of a very numerous family. I have had to make my own way in the world, and, luckily, in my composition. were all the elements of success. Plenty of brass by way of a substratum, a shining and silvery exterior, a good head, and as for point, no wit of any age could compare with me, from Rochester of the seventeenth century to Tom Taylor of the nineteenth.

"It was in busy Sheffield I first saw the light; no pains were spared to make me wor

thy my high destiny, for a high destiny did await me.

"I was one of a select and highly-finished band of shining brothers destined to form a part (a humble but a necessary part) of the bridal trousseau of that fair royal maiden who, on the death of William the Fourth, became

Queen of the Isles and Empress of the ocean;'; and, prouder title still,

'Queen of the Free.'

"No pains were spared to polish and to perfect me.

"Every pretty little pin-maker concerned in my manufacture knew she was working not merely for a bride, but for a royal bride.

"The pale, delicate factory-girls all sympathised with one who (a girl herself, although a Queen) had bravely resolved to follow the dictates of her own woman-heart, and marry for love; and many a murmured God bless

her' did that thought call forth.