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xvi houses with which her work as an authoress brought her into contact, and were addressed to Mr. Strahan, and to the literary adviser of Messrs. Routledge and Sons. She appears to have welcomed the open- ing thus given, and uttered herself more freely to them because there were not in their case the restraints of previous acquaintance. They, at all events, recognised, both of them, that they had a correspondent who was an exception to the common run of letter-writers, in almost every one of whose notes there were some exceptional touches of humour, or pathos, or imagination.

Extracts from the letters thus kept may help the readers to understand the character which speaks to them through the poems in this volume. They will acknowledge, if I mistake not, that they are worth keeping for their own sake. Those who knew her will remember with what a sudden gleam of wit, or abrupt opening of inner depths of thought, her con- versation was by turns solemnised and illumined. I quote from a short memorial paper in " Good Words " for the present year a thoughtful analysis of the im- pressions thus left on the minds of those who were brought more or less closely into contact with her : —

"She was so bright, so light, so airy in her moods and manners, and yet there was in all a strange undernote, a pathetic chord,