rvalue your
own work; but call them lines what you like, to my taste they are the
most beautiful lines in the thing you done."

Reddy did not know what to answer, and his confusion was increased by
catching old Growling's eye, who was chuckling at the _mal-a-propos_
speech of the flourishing Mrs. Riley.

"Don't you sing yourself, sir?" said that lady.

"To be sure he does," cried the Widow Flanagan; "and he must give us
one of his own."

"Oh!"

"No excuses; now, James!"

"Where's Duggan?" inquired the poetaster, affectedly; "I told him to be
here to accompany me."

"I attend your muse, sir," said a miserable structure of skin and bone,
advancing with a low bow and obsequious smile: this was the poor
music-master, who set Reddy's rhymes to music as bad, and danced
attendance on him everywhere.

The music-master fumbled over a hackneyed prelude to show his command
of the instrument.

Miss Riley whispered to her mamma that it was out of one of her first
books of lessons.

Mrs. Flanagan, with a seductive smirk, asked, "what he was going to
give them?" The poet replied, "a little thing of his own--'Rosalie; or,
the Broken Heart,'--sentimental, but rather sad."

The musical skeleton rattled his bones against the ivory in a very one,
two, three, four symphony; the poet ran his fingers through his hair,
pulled up his collar, gave his head a jaunty nod, and commenced:

ROSALIE;

OR, THE BROKEN HEART.

Fare thee--fare thee well--alas!
Fare--farewell to thee!
On pleasure's wings, as dew-drops fade,
Or honey stings the bee,
My heart is as sad as a black stone
Under the blue sea.
Oh, Rosalie! Oh, Rosalie!

As ruder rocks with envy glow,
Thy _coral_ lips to see,
So the weeping waves more briny grow
With my salt tears for thee!
My heart is as sad as a black stone
Under the blue sea.
Oh, Rosalie! Oh, Rosalie!

After this brilliant specimen of the mysteriously-sentimental and
imaginative school was sufficiently applauded, dancing was recommenced,
and Reddy seated himself beside Mrs. Riley, the incense of whose praise
was sweet in his nostrils. "Oh, you _have_ a soul for poetry indeed,
sir," said the lady. "I was bewildered with all your beautiful _idays_;
that 'honey stings the bee' is a beautiful _iday_--so expressive of the
pains and pleasures of love. Ah! I was the most romantic creature myself