fitting their high converse. On the heroine of his play he dwelt with the passionate fondness of a lover: there the real mingled with the ideal: could he write of love, and not think of Ethel Churchill? She was the Egeria of his heart, who taught him all the truth of tenderness. If there be poetry in this world, it is in the depths of an unrequited and an imaginative passion—pure, dreaming, sacred from all meaner cares and lower wishes; asking no return, but feeling that life were little to lavish on the beloved one. Often and often did Walter's dark eyes glisten as he poured his whole soul in some strain of tender eloquence, which he knew must touch the heart of woman. "She will read it;" that little phrase—what hope, what happiness, has it not given!
Walter had been spared some of the difficulties attendant on a young writer's first efforts in London, by the kindness of Sir Jasper Meredith, whose letter of introduction to his bookseller had been more efficacious than such things usually are. The fact was,
