y of her
devotion; and as an act of faith it naturally asked for miracles. She
was a rare wife for a poet if she was not perhaps the best who could
have been picked out for a poor man.

Well, we were to have the miracles at all events and we were in a
perfect state of mind to receive them. There were more of us every day,
and we thought highly even of our friend's odd jobs and pot-boilers. The
_Beacon_ had had no successor, but he found some quiet comers and stray
chances. Perpetually poking the fire and looking out of the window, he
was certainly not a monster of facility, but he was, thanks perhaps to a
certain method in that madness, a monster of certainty. It wasn't every
one however who knew him for this: many editors printed him but once.
He was getting a small reputation as a man it was well to have the
first time; he created obscure apprehensions as to what might happen the
second. He was good for making an impression, but no one seemed exactly
to know what the impression was good for when made. The reason was
simply that they had not seen yet _The Major Key_ that fiery-hearted
rose as to which we watched in private the formation of petal after
petal and flame after flame. Nothing mattered but this, for it had
already elicited a splendid bid, much talked about in Mrs. High-more's
drawing-room, where at this point my reminiscences grow particularly
thick. _Her_ roses bloomed all the year and her sociability increased
with her row of prizes. We had an idea that we "met every one" there--so
we naturally thought when we met each other. Between our hostess and Ray
Limbert flourished the happiest relation, the only cloud on which was
that her husband eyed him rather askance. When he was called clever this
personage wanted to know what he had to "show;" and it was certain that
he showed nothing that could compare with Jane Highmore. Mr. Highmore
took his stand on accomplished work and, turning up his coat-tails,
warmed his rear with a good conscience at the neat bookcase in which
the generations of triplets were chronologically arranged. The harmony
between his companions rested on the fact that, as I have already
hinted, each would have liked so much to be the other. Limbert couldn't
but have a feeling about a woman who in addition to being the best
creature and her sister's backer would have made, could she have
condescended, such a success with the _Beacon_. On the other hand Mrs.
Highmore used freely to say: "Do yo