Page:A Literary Courtship (1893).pdf/180

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had made their début, equipped, as the newspapers say, "with every advantage the bookmaker's art could bestow."

I was still admiring them, when John, who had stood, meanwhile, fairly fuming with impatience, cried: "And now we know who wrote them!"

"Has she confessed?" I asked, looking up from my favorite Knighted.

"Confessed? No. But there can't be any doubt about it. Everything goes to prove it. 'Gog and Magog,' 'Solitude,' 'The Cripple's Cup.' I tell you that 'Cripple's Cup' is an inside view."

"Good gracious, Jack!" said I. "You don't think the 'bird in the cage' wrote them?"

"If she didn't, nobody did! Why it was all in Her eye as plain as print."

"What was in her eye, Jack? Do talk sense."

"The inspired ones, the best ones; and the melancholy ones were in the corners of her mouth; and the witty ones were in the cut of her nose; and the de-