and a few years later belong the best of her published work.
Her first appearance in print was during the Crimean War in 1854, when the patriotic passion overflowed in a short poem sent merely as an impromptu in a letter to her sister. The sister equipped it with the title of "War Music," and, without a hint to Louisa, sent it to the Spectator; where the authoress read it with great astonishment. The poem became popular, and several more followed in the same journal the final result being a tiny joint volume by the two sisters, of which the best pieces were hers, called "War Lyrics."
Life had for Louisa its usual pains, its partings and bereavements, and its disillusions as well. Here in midway life the sisters lost their mother; next year came news that the beloved brother (whose return from his long exile and sore fight with life they were daily expecting) had perished suddenly at sea; and three years after, 1863, the worn-out, widowed father went to his repose.
But this time of trouble had braced her faculties; "Hannibal" was taken up again, "carried on," as she said, "through much sorrow," revised
16
