thoughts, too great for speech, fall on dull ears. Even thy father,
for whom thou first took up pen, doth not understand thee! and a mother's
love thou hast never known. And fame without love--how barren! Heaven is
thy home. Let slip thy thin, white hands on the thread of life and glide
gently out at ebb of tide--out into the unknown. It can not but be better
than this--God understands! Compose thy troubled spirit, give up thy vain
hopes. See! thy youth is past, little woman; look closely! there are gray
hairs in thy locks, thy face is marked with lines of care, and have I not
seen signs of winter in thy veins? Earth holds naught for thee. Come, take
thy pen and write, just a last good-by, a tender farewell, such as thou
alone canst say. Then fold thy thin hands, and make peace with all by
passing out and away, out and away--God understands!

* * * * *

Elizabeth Barrett was thirty-seven, and Miss Mitford, up to London from
the country for a couple of days, wrote home that she had lost her winsome
beauty.

John Kenyon had turned well into sixty, but he carried his years in a
jaunty way. He wore a moss-rose bud in the lapel of his well-fitting coat.
His linen was immaculate, and the only change people saw in him was that
he wore spectacles in place of a monocle.

The physicians allowed Mr. Kenyon to visit the darkened room whenever he
chose, for he never stayed so very long, neither was he ever the bearer of
bad news.

Did the greatest poetess of the age (temporarily slightly indisposed) know
one Browning--Robert Browning, a writer of verse? Why, no; she had never
met him, but of course she knew of him, and had read everything he had
written. He had sent her one of his books once. He was surely a man of
brilliant parts--so strong and farseeing! He lives in Italy, with the
monks, they say. What a pity the English people do not better appreciate
him!

"But he may succeed yet," said Mr. Kenyon. "He is not old."

"Oh, of course, such genius must some day be recognized. But he may be
gone then--how old did you say he was?"

Mr. Kenyon had not said; but he now explained that Mr. Browning was
thirty-four, that is to say, just the age of himself, ahem! Furthermore,
Mr. Browning did not live in Italy--that is, not now, for at that present
moment he was in London. In fact, Mr. Kenyon had lunched with him an hour
before. They had talked of Miss Barrett (for who else was there among
women wor