Page:A Literary Courtship (1893).pdf/47

 that it has brought upon you another, and a far more troublesome one. I can imagine your consternation at sight of the enclosed poems, and I am well aware that my conduct in sending them to you is unjustifiable. When I say that Tam sacrificing your convenience on the altar ofa friendship of my own it will hardly seem to mitigate the wrong. Nevertheless, I throw niyself upon your mercy. These poems are the work of one of my friends. She has written them from time to time in years past as a congenial exercise of her faculties rather than from any more ambitious motive. They seem to me to be not without value. My judgment, to be sure, does not count for much; yet hitherto I have known no one to whom I was willing to submit it in this matter. Ever since your letter came I have been possessed with the desire to have you see my friend's poems. I speak of her thus impersonally, in consideration of her wish to conceal her identity,—a feeling with which you, my dear Miss Lamb, must surely sympathize."

At this point the reader coughed slightly, but resumed:

"Please observe that she does not, at