that only made itself heard after the verse had ceased, filling the silence like a speech. There was such light banter in her mirth, such tricksy innocent flashes of fun, mingled with such possibilities of sadness, tears, despair. And ever breaking through the light dancing music she so delighted in, there was a sense of trouble and repressed sorrow, often communicating a kind of unpolished hurry to her finest work. At first one felt a little surprised at this, for the presence of power was unmistakable ; soon one came to expect it; it symbolized that process of painful pressure and determined bracing of the will in the midst of incessant pain by which she came at her best work. Deepest glimpses, touches almost perfect in truth and delicacy, and melodious turns, inimitable in their individuality and freedom, always followed a point or line that was specially disappointing. It was as though her signal for the feast was a sudden and wayward trumpet blare. And it was very much the same with her conversation ; brilliant, sparkling, vivacious as it was in the main, she would throw outun expectedly the most trying 'posers,' weighty with meaning and purpose. When all were fairly non-plussed over the untoward puzzle, she would cast upon it such rippling lights of humour that it dissolved in genial currents of laughter. She had the faculty of the true humorist — could laugh most lightly when she felt most seriously, and veil her gravest lessons under the kindly mask of mirth.
" ' Ever across the caustic of her words
There dropped the wondrous nectar of her smile,
A smile as joyous, frank, and innocent,
As that with which a babe awakes from sleep.'
*****
"Notwithstanding her remarkable quickness and readiness of intellect, there was something strangely far withdrawn and absent about her. When she listened to you, very often it seemed as
