43 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



No cause to move her motlier's heart to bleed, 



Nor need for lamentation nor for care. 

 Her gentle presence, as the oil on wave, 



Is there to keep the rude declaimer down, 

 She comes so softly with a smile to save, 



Each angry lip from harshness not its own. 

 Men never are so bright as when they steal, • 



The laughing sunlight that her eyes reveal. 



In the quiet oiit-cloor life which it is my lot to 

 lead now, I have not much time to read anything 

 but the newspapers, for the book of my ever-ruling 

 teacheress — dear, sublime, and all-mysterious Nature 

 — lies before me, and therein still exists a mine 

 of ever-opening wealth, that bids research and 

 takes up all my time. In the few books that thus 

 occasionally reach me I met but the other day 

 with one by my friend Whyte Melville. Having 

 read '^ Digby Grand," and ^' Kate Coventry," 

 of course, on seeing '^ Contraband ; or, a Losing- 

 Hazard," it met with my immediate attention, and 

 in it I was much gratified by the following 

 passages. In its narrative. Sir Henry Hallaton 

 asks Mrs. Lascelles if she had ever read my 

 book, '' The Reminiscences of a Huntsman," as 

 published by Longman, in Paternoster Row; and 

 Whyte Melville makes Sir Henry Hallaton 

 recommend her to read it, if she ^' wants to find 



