“Hast thou no note for joy, thou weeping lyre? 
    Doth yew and willow ever shade thy string
    And melancholy sable banners fling,
    Warring ’midst hosts of elegant desire? 
    How vain the strife—­how vain the warlike gloom! 
    Love’s arms are grief—­his arrows sighs and tears;
    And every moan thou mak’st, an altar rears,
    To which his worshippers devoutly come. 
    Then rather, lyre, I pray thee, try thy skill,
    In varied measure, on a sprightlier key: 
    Perchance thy gayer tones’ light minstrelsy
    May heal the poison that thy plaints distil. 
    But much I fear that joy is danger still;
    And joy, like woe, love’s triumph must fulfil.”

This called forth unanimous applause—­“delicate imagery”—­“smooth versification” —­“classical ideas”—­“Petrarchian sweetness,” etc. etc., resounded from all quarters.

But even intellectual joys have their termination, and carriages and servants began to be announced in rapid succession.

“Fly not yet, ’tis just the hour,” said Mrs. Bluemits to the first of her departing guests, as the clock struck ten.

“It is gone, with its thorns and its roses,” replied er friend with a sigh, and a farewell pressure of the hand.

Another now advanced—­“Wilt thou be gone?  It is not yet near day.”

“I have less will to go than care to stay,” was the reply.

“Parta ti lascio adio,” warbled Miss Parkins.

“I vanish,” said Mrs. Apsley, snatching up her tippet, reticule, etc., “and, like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a wreck behind.”

“Fare-thee-well at once—­Adieu, adieu, adieu, remember me!” cried the last of the band, as she slowly retreated.

Mrs. Bluemits waved her hand with a look of tender reproach, as she repeated—­

    “An adieu should in utterance die,
    Or, if written, should faintly appear—­
    Should be heard in the sob of a sigh,
    Or be seen in the blot of a teal.”

“I’m sure, Mary,” said Grizzy, when they were in the carriage, “I expected, when all the ladies were repeating, that you would have repeated something too.  You used to have the Hermit and all Watts’s Hymns by heart, when you was little.  It’s a thousand pities, I declare, that you should have forgot them; for I declare I was quite affronted to see you sitting like a stick, and not saying a word, when all the ladies were speaking and turning up their eyes, and moving their hands so prettily; but I’m sure I hope next time you go to Mrs. Bluemits’s you will take care to learn something by heart before you go.  I’m sure I haven’t a very good memory, but I remember some things; and I was very near going to repeat ‘Farewell to Lochaber’ myself, as we were coming away; and I’m sure I wish to goodness I had done it; but I suppose it wouldn’t do to go back now; and at any rate all the ladies are away, and I dare say the candles will be out by this time.”