She had her locked drawing-book under her arm.—­Let me take it,—­I said.

She gave it to me to carry.

This is full of caricatures of all of us, I am sure,—­said I.

She laughed, and said,—­No,—­not all of you.

I was there, of course?

Why, no,—­she had never taken so much pains with me.

Then she would let me see the inside of it?

She would think of it.

Just as we parted, she took a little key from her pocket and handed it to me.—­This unlocks my naughty book,—­she said,—­you shall see it.  I am not afraid of you.

I don’t know whether the last words exactly pleased me.  At any rate, I took the book and hurried with it to my room.  I opened it, and saw, in a few glances, that I held the heart of Iris in my hand.

* * * * *

—­I have no verses for you this month, except these few lines suggested by the season.

MIDSUMMER.

Here! sweep these foolish leaves away,—­
I will not crush my brains to-day!—­
Look! are the southern curtains drawn? 
Fetch me a fan, and so begone!

Not that,—­the palm-tree’s rustling leaf
Brought from a parching coral-reef! 
Its breath is heated;—­I would swing
The broad gray plumes,—­the eagle’s wing.

I hate these roses’ feverish blood!—­
Pluck me a half-blown lily-bud,
A long-stemmed lily from the lake,
Cold as a coiling water-snake.

Rain me sweet odors on the air,
And wheel me up my Indian chair,
And spread some book not overwise
Flat out before my sleepy eyes.

—­Who knows it not,—­this dead recoil
Of weary fibres stretched with toil,—­
The pulse that flutters faint and low
When Summer’s seething breezes blow?

O Nature! bare thy loving breast
And give thy child one hour of rest,—­
One little hour to lie unseen
Beneath thy scarf of leafy green!

So, curtained by a singing pine,
Its murmuring voice shall blend with mine,
Till, lost in dreams, my faltering lay
In sweeter music dies away.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

Life and Liberty in America:  or Sketches of a Tour in the United States and Canada in 1857-8.  By CHARLES MACKAY, LL.D., F.S.A.  London:  Smith, Elder, & Co. 1859.

“Let him come back and write a book about the ’Merrikins as’ll pay all his expenses and more, if he blows ’em up enough,” urged Mr. Anthony Weller, by way of climax to his scheme for Mr. Pickwick’s liberation from the Fleet Prison.  Whether Mr. Dickens, in putting forth this suggestion through one of his favorite characters, had or had not a view to subsequent operations of his own, has long been a sore question among his admirers on this side of the Atlantic.  We believe that he had not; and that such “blowing-up” as he imparted to the people of this country was wholly unpremeditated and spontaneous, besides being of so harmless a nature that the patriot of most uneasy virtue need have been nowise distressed in consequence.  The language can show few more amusing books than the “American Notes,” especially the serious parts thereof.