th crimson
edges, lace paper, all stamped with R. F. T. (Rosa Fitzroy Timmins)
and the hand and battle-axe, the crest of the Timminses (and borne at
Ascalon by Roaldus de Timmins, a crusader, who is now buried in the
Temple Church, next to Serjeant Snooks), and yellow, pink, light-blue
and other scented sealing waxes, at the service of Rosa when she chose
to correspond with her friends.

Rosa, you may be sure, jumped with joy at the sight of this sweet
present; called her Charles (his first name is Samuel, but they have
sunk that) the best of men; embraced him a great number of times, to the
edification of her buttony little page, who stood at the landing; and as
soon as he was gone to chambers, took the new pen and a sweet sheet of
paper, and began to compose a poem.

"What shall it be about?" was naturally her first thought. "What should
be a young mother's first inspiration?" Her child lay on the sofa asleep
before her; and she began in her neatest hand--

"LINES

"ON MY SON BUNGAY DE BRACY GASHLEIGH TYMMYNS, AGED TEN MONTHS.

"Tuesday.

"How beautiful! how beautiful thou seemest,
My boy, my precious one, my rosy babe!
Kind angels hover round thee, as thou dreamest:
Soft lashes hide thy beauteous azure eye which gleamest."

"Gleamest? thine eye which gleamest? Is that grammar?" thought Rosa, who
had puzzled her little brains for some time with this absurd question,
when the baby woke. Then the cook came up to ask about dinner; then Mrs.
Fundy slipped over from No. 27 (they are opposite neighbors, and made
an acquaintance through Mrs. Fundy's macaw); and a thousand things
happened. Finally, there was no rhyme to babe except Tippoo Saib
(against whom Major Gashleigh, Rosa's grandfather, had distinguished
himself), and so she gave up the little poem about her De Bracy.

Nevertheless, when Fitzroy returned from chambers to take a walk with
his wife in the Park, as he peeped through the rich tapestry hanging
which divided the two drawing-rooms, he found his dear girl still seated
at the desk, and writing, writing away with her ruby pen as fast as it
could scribble.

"What a genius that child has!" he said; "why, she is a second Mrs.
Norton!" and advanced smiling to peep over her shoulder and see what
pretty thing Rosa was composing.

It was not poetry, though, that she was wr