ut not for fame. But
suddenly, as he turned over these 'Occasional Pieces,' Leonard came to
others in a different handwriting--a woman's handwriting--small, and
fine, and exquisitely formed. He had scarcely read six lines of these
last before his attention was irresistibly chained. They were of a
different order of merit from poor Mark's; they bore the unmistakable
stamp of genius. Like the poetry of women in general, they were devoted
to personal feeling--they were not the mirror of a world, but
reflections of a solitary heart. Yet this is the kind of poetry most
pleasing to the young. And the verses in question had another attraction
for Leonard; they seemed to express some struggle akin to his own--some
complaint against the actual condition of the writer's life, some sweet
melodious murmurs at fortune. For the rest, they were characterized by a
vein of sentiment so elevated that, if written by a man, it would have
run into exaggeration; written by a woman, the romance was carried off
by so many revelations of sincere, deep, pathetic feeling, that it was
always natural, though true to a nature from which you would not augur
happiness.

Leonard was still absorbed in the perusal of these poems, when Mrs.
Fairfield entered the room.

"What have you been about, Lenny?--searching in my box?"

"I came to look for my father's bag of tools, mother, and I found these
papers, which you said I might read some day."

"I doesn't wonder you did not hear me when I came in," said the widow
sighing. "I used to sit still for the hour together, when my poor Mark
read his poems to me. There was such a pretty one about the Peasant's
Fireside, Lenny--have you got hold of that?"

"Yes, dear mother; and I remarked the allusion to you; it brought tears
to my eyes. But these verses are not my father's--whose are they? They
seem a woman's hand."

Mrs. Fairfield looked--changed color--grew faint--and seated herself.

"Poor, poor Nora!" said she falteringly. "I did not know as they were
there; Mark kep' 'em; they got among his"--

_Leonard._--"Who was Nora?"

_Mrs. Fairfield._--"Who?--child,--who? Nora was--was my own--own
sister."

_Leonard_ (in great amaze, contrasting his ideal of the writer of these
musical lines in that graceful hand, with his homely, uneducated mother,
who can neither read nor write.)--"Your sister--is it possible? My aunt,
then. How comes it you never spoke of her before? Oh, you should be so
proud of her, mo