"We make
A ladder of our thoughts where angels step,
But sleep ourselves at the foot!"[1]
Before Clifford had last seen her, we have observed that Lucy had (and it was a consolation) clung to the belief that, despite of appearances and his own confession, his past life had not been such as to place him without the pale of her just affections; and there were frequent moments when, remembering that the death of her father had removed the only being who could assert an un-
- ↑ "The History of the Lyre," by L. E. L.
We are informed that this charming and amiable young lady, not content with her triumphs in poetry, is about to enter our own province in prose, and that, at this moment, she is engaged in the composition of a novel. Could we, who have perhaps more than once disappointed the public in ourself, venture to believe we had the power to excite its expectations in another, we would fain hazard the prediction of a great and a deserved popularity for the said novel, whenever it appear. Every one knows that the writer of the Improvisatrice can command, at will, the auxiliaries of sentiment, thought, imagination, and an exceeding richness of imagery and glow of diction; but, perhaps, every one does not yet know that she can also command what are generally more calculated to give celebrity to a novel, viz. a playful and lively wit, an acute and unerring observation, an intuitive tact in the shades and varieties of manner, and, above all, the art to make trifles singularly entertaining.
