“For my part,” said Miss Parkins, “a genius fettered by rules always reminds me of Gulliver in the hairy bonds of the Lilliputians; and the sentiment of the elegant and enlightened bard of Twickenham is also mine—­

   ’Great wits sometimes may glorious offend,
    And rise to faults true critics dare not mend;
    From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,
    And match a grace beyond the reach of art.’

So it is with the subject of our argument:  a tamer genius than the illustrious Byron would not have dared to ‘crunch’ the bone.  But where, in the whole compass of the English language, will you find a word capable of conveying the same idea?”

“Pick,” modestly suggested one of the novices in a low key, hoping to gain some celebrity by this her first effort; but this dawn of intellect passed unnoticed.

The argument was now beginning to run high; parties were evidently forming of crunchers and anticrunchers, and etymology was beginning to be called for, when a thundering knock at the door caused a cessation of hostilities.

“That, I flatter myself, is my friend Miss Griffon,” said Mrs. Bluemits, with an air of additional importance; and the name was whispered round the circle, coupled with “Celebrated Authoress—­’Fevers of the Heart’—­ ‘Thoughts of the Moment,’” etc. etc.

“Is she a real authoress that is coming?” asked Miss Grizzy at the lady next her.  And her delight was great at receiving an answer in the affirmative; for Grizzy thought to be in company with an authoress was the next thing to being an authoress herself; and, like some other people, she had a sort of vague mysterious reverence for everyone whose words had been printed in a book.

“Ten thousand thousand pardons, dearest Mrs. Bluemits!” exclaimed Miss Griffon, as she entered.  “I fear a world of intellect is lost to me by this cruel delay.”  Then in an audible whisper—­“But I was detained by my publisher.  He quite persecutes me to write.  My ‘Fevers of the Heart’ has had a prodigious run; and even my ‘Thoughts,’ which, in fact, cost me no thought, are amazingly recherche. And I actually had to force my way to you to-night through a legion of printer’s devils, who were lying in wait for me with each a sheet of my ‘Billows of Love.’”

“The title is most musical, most melancholy,” said Mrs. Bluemits, “and conveys a perfect idea of what Dryden terms ’the sweeping deluge of the soul;’ but I flatter myself we shall have something more than a name from Miss Griffon’s genius.  The Aonian graces, ’tis well known, always follow in her train.”

“They have made a great hole in it then,” said Grizzy, officiously displaying a fracture in the train of Miss Griffon’s gown, and from thence taking occasion to deliver her sentiments on the propriety of people who tore gowns always being obliged to mend them.

After suitable entreaties had been used, Miss Griflon was at last prevailed upon to favour the company, with some specimens of the “Billows of Love” (of which we were unable to procure copies) and the following sonnet, the production of a friend;—­