She paused, and leaning her brow upon her little white hand, sat buried in deep thought. At length she spoke again.
“If I could do anything to earn money and help I should be so much happier. Poor papa got a good deal lately for his pictures; but they were so clever. Lewis can paint beautifully, but my drawings are so tame. I wonder whether people would buy poetry. I wish I knew whether my verses are good enough to induce any one to purchase them. Dearest papa praised those lines of mine which he accidentally found one day. Of course he was a good judge, only perhaps he liked them because they were mine.” And the tears rolled silently down her pale cheeks as memory brought before her the glance of bright and surprised approval, the warm yet judicious praise, the tender criticism--words, looks, and tones of love now lost to her for ever, which the accidental discovery of her verses had drawn forth. With an aching heart she closed the casement, and lighting a candle, proceeded to unlock a small writing-desk, from whence she drew some manuscript verses, which ran as follows:--
Art thou a-weary, Soul, and dost thou cry
For Death _is real_--the Grave _no mockery_.
Repented sins for His sake are forgiven--
The flowers that God hath scatter’d on our path--
The smile of love still brightening as we come,
The seventh day of rest, the poor man’s treasure
Bright sunshine, happy birds, the joy of flowers?
Was “very good,” and hath its blessings still;
We may be happy. Say, stern preacher, why
Should we then hate to live, or fear to die,
Rose perused them attentively, sighed deeply, and then resumed--
“Yes, _he_ liked them, and said (I remember his very words) there was more vigour and purpose about them than in the general run of girlish verses. How could I find out whether they are worth anything?” She paused in reflection, then clasping her hands together suddenly, she exclaimed--
“Yes, of course, Mr. Frere; he was so good and kind about the pictures, and Lewis says he is so very clever, he will tell me. But may not he think it strange and odd in me to write to him? Had I better consult mamma?”
But with the question came an instinctive consciousness that she was about the last person whom it would be agreeable to consult on such an occasion. Rose, like every other woman possessing the slightest approach to the artist mind, felt a shrinking delicacy in regard to what the Browning school would term her “utterances,” which rendered the idea of showing them where they would not be appreciated exquisitely painful to her. Now, Mrs. Arundel had a disagreeable knack of occasionally brushing against a feeling so rudely as to cause the unlucky originator thereof to experience a mental twinge closely akin to the bodily sensation yclept toothache.