name or cypher affixed, and the mystery of the author was not solved:

"WAITING.

"Loveliest strains are lying,
Waiting to awake,
Till a master's hand
Shall sweetest music make.

"Life's best gifts are waiting
Till a magic power
Calls them from their hiding,
In some happy hour.

"Brightest hopes are watching
For their time of bliss,
When a kindred spirit
Greets them with a kiss.

"Dreams of purest joys
Shadows still remain,
Till the day-star rises,
And loss is turned to gain.

"Sadness, grief, and sorrow,
Like clouds shall pass away,
If only we in patience wait
Till dawns the perfect day."

"This author may claim a wreath," Lady Miller said, "but perhaps she
likes best to be uncrowned."

There was endless discussion as to the author of what seemed to be
considered a poem of unusual merit, and one and another looked
conscious, and blushed and simpered, for no one was unwilling to take
the honour to herself. Lady Betty was sure it was only the dear
Marchioness who could have written them, only she was too modest to
declare herself.

"Mock modesty I call it!" said Lady Miller, who was a bright, jovial
woman, and had nothing of the grace or sentimental air which the
verse-makers of those days wore as their badge.

Not a single person thought of taxing Griselda with the verses, so quiet
had she been in these assemblies, seldom expressing any opinion as to
the poems of other people. Griselda was not in the charmed circle of the
_elite_ of Parnassus, who had a right to wear one of Lady Miller's
laurel crowns, and yet the verses, such as they were and poor as they
may seem to us, were superior to the _bouts rimes_ on a "buttered
muffin," which, report says, were once dropped into the Roman vase at
Batheaston.

At the time of which I write, Lady Miller's sun was declining. Scarcely
two years later, she died at the Clifton Hot Wells, at a comparatively
early age. But in her day her reputation spread far and wide; and some
of the contributions, notably one from Sheridan's able pen, were full of
real, and not, as was too often the case, affected feeling.

This reunion to which Lady Betty and Griselda went on this December
night was not one of the Fairs of Parnassus which were held every
Thursday. It was a soiree, to which only a select few--such as
marchionesses, and embryo duchesses, and future pe