for more "copy," instead of being, as the ingenuous youth is, indignant at our excesses in longitude and latitude, we could gloriously fill up a sheet or two with a formal enumeration of the comedies, farces, feuilletons, and opuscula miscellanea of Mrs. Gore's authorship. Nor would the mere catalogue read amiss, or be wanting in interest, to those who gloat over me catalogues of Homer's ships, and Milton's proper names, and the leveo and drawing-room statistics in four parallel columns of the Times. As a novelist, we take our leave of her, with a cordial sense of her singular talents and memorable industry—our general impression of her multifarious fictions being in accordance with the complimentary comment of Leigh Hunt:[1]
Then how much good reading! what fit, flowing words!
What enjoyment, whether midst houses or herds!
'Tis the thinking of men with the lightness of birds!
HESTER SOMERSET.
BY NICHOLAS MICHELL.
BOOK III.
Chapter XX.
Hester's Money has Vanished—The Police-office.
It was not long before Hester awoke, and her first sensation was surprise at finding herself in the dark. She struck a light; and that surprise was increased when she perceived that her candle had not burnt down, but that some person had placed the extinguisher upon it. Julio was awakened by the movements of her sister, and had begun to dress herself in order to take her turn as sentinel. A slight scream from Hester betrayed that she had now discovered the fatal truth. The drawer of the bureau was open, and empty; the treasure—the hoarded hope of a father's freedom—all the money was gone!
Pitiable was the picture of consternation, anguish, and despair, which the girl presented. For the first few moments she was speechless, and could only by gestures make Julie aware of the terrible stroke which had befallen them. By degrees, however, she gained self-possession, and was enabled, amidst the whirl of her feelings, to act and think. She rushed to the door, but no one could have entered by that way, since it was locked on the inside. The window, with its cut pane, quickly told the tale; and as she threw open the sash, the ladder of ropes was seen still dangling from the iron bar, the thief in his hurry having neglected to take it away.
Hester's first suspicion fell on the gardener, but the old man seemed the very personification of honesty; and when she saw his little dog, that at one time had roused her by his bark, lying dead in the garden, the
- ↑ Blue-stocking Revels, canto ii.
taste. With her a blank is a sham, and all shams are to be put down—except on paper.
