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214 ADELAIDE PROCTER. poetry, until her first verses appeared in print. These were published in the Book of Beauty, and a few others followed in various magazines, but her first volume, entitled A Chaplet of Verses, was not issued until 1862, when she was thirty-seven years of age. This little volume was published for the benefit of a London Night-Refuge, and in a preface Miss Procter advances the claims of the institution, narrates its his- tory, and solicits aid for its treasury. But she makes a much more powerful plea in two of the poems — " Home- less," and " The Homeless Poor." The latter, a striking dialogue between the Angel of Prayers and the Angel of Deeds, in which the splendid services going on within the churches of the city are contrasted with the misery of the poor creatures left shivering in the streets at night, is still a favorite with many of her readers. Some of the other -poems too — such as " Milly's Expiation," a story told by an Irish priest, " A Legend," and " Our Titles," are in her best manner. Many of the poems pertain to her faith — she was a Roman Catholic — but it is not necessary to be a catholic to appreciate the artistic beauty of such pieces as the " Shrines of Mary," and " A Chaplet of Flowers." It was in 1853 that Dickens, then editor of " Household Words," noticed among the contributions with which his office table was littered, a short poem which he considered unusually good. It professed to be the work of a Miss Mary Berwick, a name quite unknown to him, who was to be addressed through a London circulating library. He wrote to her immediately, accepting the poem and request- ing her to contribute another. She did so, and became a writer for the periodical. Miss Berwick was none other than Miss Procter, whom Dickens had known since she was a little girl, and whose father was one of his oldest and dearest friends. She had