Went forward for a page or more
(_Asem and Asa_: DICK could trace
Almost the passage and the place);
Then for a moment with bent head
Rested upon her hand and read.

(DICK thought once more how cousin CIS
Used when she read to lean like this;--
"Used when she _read_,"--why, CIS could _say_
All he had written,--any day!)

Sudden was heard a hurrying tread;
The great doors creaked. The reader fled.
Forth came a crowd with muffled laughter,
A waft of Bergamot, and after,
His Chaplain smirking at his side,
My Lord himself in all his pride--
A portly shape in stars and lace,
With wine-bag cheeks and vacant face.

DICK bowed and smiled. The Great Man stared,
With look half puzzled and half scared;
Then seemed to recollect, turned round,
And mumbled some imperfect sound:
A moment more, his coach of state
Dipped on its springs beneath his weight;
And DICK, who followed at his heels,
Heard but the din of rolling wheels.

Away, too, all his dreams had rolled;
And yet they left him half consoled:
Fame, after all, he thought might wait.
Would CIS? Suppose he were too late!
Ten months he'd lost in Town--an age!

Next day he took the _Wiltshire_ Stage.

VERS DE SOCIETE.

INCOGNITA.

Just for a space that I met her--
Just for a day in the train!
It began when she feared it would wet her,
That tiniest spurtle of rain:
So we tucked a great rug in the sashes,
And carefully padded the pane;
And I sorrow in sackcloth and ashes,
Longing to do it again!

Then it grew when she begged me to reach her
A dressing-case under the seat;
She was "really so tiny a creature,
That she needed a stool for her feet!"
Which was promptly arranged to her order
With a care that was even minute,
And a glimpse--of an open-work border,
And a glance--of the fairyest boot.

Then it drooped, and revived at some hovels--
"Were they houses for men or for pigs?"
Then it shifted to muscular novels,
With a little digression on prigs:
She thought "Wives and Daughters" "so jolly;"
"Had I read it?" She knew when I had,
Like the rest, I should dote upon "Molly;"
And "poor Mrs. Gaskell--how sad!"

"Like Browning?" "But so-so." His proof lay
Too deep for her frivolous mood.
That p