es stole in. I had been reading to her some verses of my own,
celebrating the praise of first love as an imperishable sentiment. My
fancy had just been crazed with the poetry of L.E.L., who was then
shining as the "bright particular star" in the literary heavens.

"The lines are very pretty," said my aunt, "but I trust it's only
poetizing, Kate; I should be sorry indeed to have you join the school
of romantic misses who think first love such a killing matter."

"But, Aunty," I cried, "what a horribly prosy, matter-of-fact affair
life would be in any other view! I believe poetry itself would become
extinct."

"So, then, if a woman is disappointed in first love, she is bound to
die for the benefit of poetry!"

"But just think, Aunt Linny--if Ophelia, instead of going mad so
prettily, and dying in a way to break everybody's heart, had soberly
set herself to consider that there were as fine fish yet in the sea as
ever were caught, and that it was best, therefore, to cheer up and
wait for better times! Frightful!"

"Never trouble your little head, Kate, with fear that there will not
be Ophelias enough, as long as the world stands. But I wouldn't be
one, if I were you, unless I could bespeak a Shakspeare to do me into
poetry. That would be an inducement, I allow. How would you fancy
being a Sukey Fay, Kate?"

"Oh, the poor old wretch, with her rags and dirt and gin-bottle! Has
she a story?"

"Just as romantic a one as Ophelia, only she lacks a poet. But, in
sober truth, Katy, why is there not as true poetry in battling with
feeling as in yielding to it? To me there seems something far more
lofty and beautiful in bearing to live, under certain circumstances,
than in daring to die."

"If you only spoke experimentally, dear Aunty! Oh that Plato, or John
Milton, or Sir Philip Sydney would reappear, and lay all his genius
and glory at your feet! I wonder if you'd be of the same mind then!"

"And then, of course, this sublime suitor must die, or desert me, to
show how I would behave under the trial.--Katy," continued my aunt,
after a little pause, with a smile and slight blush, "I have half a
mind to tell you a little romance of my early days, when I was just
your age. It may be useful to you at this point of your life."

"Is it possible?" cried I,--"a romance of your early days! Quick, let
me hear!"

"I shouldn't have called it a romance, Katy; for as a story, it is
just nothing. It has no interest except as marking