CHARLES DICKENS. 207 



poem among the proffered contributions, very different, as 1 

 thought, from the shoal of verses perpetually passing through 

 the office of such a periodical, and possessing much more 

 merit. Its authoress was quite unknown to me. She was 

 one Miss Mary Berwick, whom I had never heard of; and 

 she was to be addressed by letter, if addressed at all, at a 

 circulating library in the western district of London. Through 

 this channel Miss Berwick was informed that her poem was 

 accepted, and was invited to send another. She complied, 

 and became a regular and frequent contributor. Many 

 letters passed between the journal and Miss Berwick, but 

 Miss Berwick herself was never seen. How we came gradually 

 to establish, at the office of Household Words, that we know 

 all about Miss Berwick, I have never discovered. But v>'e 

 settled, somehow, to our complete satisfaction, that she was 

 governess in a family ; that she went to Italy in that capacity, 

 and returned ; and that she had long been in the same 

 family. We really knew nothing whatever of her, except that 

 she was remarkably business-like, punctual, self-reliant, and 

 reliable; so I suppose we insensibly invented the rest. For 

 myself, my mother was not a more real personage to me than 

 Miss Berwick the governess became. This went on until 

 December 1854, when the Christmas number, entitled The 

 Seven Poor Travellers, was sent to press. Happening to be 

 going to dine that day with an old and dear friend, dis- 

 tinguished in literature as Barry Cornwall, I took with me an 

 early proof of that number, and remarked, as I laid it on tlie 

 drawing-room table, that it contained a very pretty poem, 

 written by a certain Miss Berwick. Next day brought me the 

 disclosure that I had so spoken of tlie poem to the mother of 

 its writer, in its writer's presence ; that I had no such corrcs- 



