th you."

"I can't stop; I must run back to the children. No; now don't look
cross;" as his brow clouded, "I only said that to tease you. I'll
stop with you ten whole minutes, if you won't look so very solemn and
important. I hate tragedy faces. Now what is it?"

As all this was spoken while both her hands were clasped round
Elsley's neck, and with looks and tones of the very sweetest as well
as the very sauciest, no offence was given, and none taken: but
Elsley's voice was sad as he asked,--

"So you really do care for my poems?"

"You great silly creature? Why else did I marry you at all? As if I
cared for anything in the world but your poems; as if I did not love
everybody who praises them; and if any stupid reviewer dares to say a
word against them I could kill him on the spot. I care for nothing in
the world but what people say of you.--And yet I don't care one pin; I
know what your poems are, if nobody else does; and they belong to me,
because you belong to me, and I must be the best judge, and care for
nobody, no not I!"--And she began singing, and then hung over him,
tormenting him lovingly while he read.

It was a true American review, utterly extravagant in its laudations,
whether from over-kindness, or from a certain love of exaggeration and
magniloquence, which makes one suspect that a large proportion of the
Transatlantic gentlemen of the press must be natives of the sister
isle: but it was all the more pleasant to the soul of Elsley.

"There," said Lucia, as she clung croodling to him; "there is a pretty
character of you, sir! Make the most of it, for it is all those
Yankees will ever send you."

"Yes," said Elsley, "if they would send one a little money, instead of
making endless dollars by printing one's books, and then a few more by
praising one at a penny a line."

"That's talking like a man of business: if instead of the review, now,
a cheque for fifty pounds had come, how I would have rushed out and
paid the bills!"

"And liked it a great deal better than the review?"

"You jealous creature! No. If I could always have you praised, I'd
live in a cabin, and go about the world barefoot, like a wild Irish
girl."

"You would make a very charming one."

"I used to, once, I can tell you, Valencia and I used to run about
without shoes and stockings at Kilanbaggan, and you can't think how
pretty and white this little foot used to look on a nice soft carpet
of green moss."

"I shall write a s