acknowledging receipt of the many books sent to him by aspiring authors.
It ran something like this: "The Earl of Beaconsfield begs to thank the
gifted author of----for a copy of his book, and gives the hearty assurance
that he will waste no time in reading the volume."

And further, the fact is set forth with unction that Robert Browning was
entrusted with a latchkey early in life, and that he always gave his
mother a good-night kiss. He gave her the good-night kiss willy-nilly. If
she had retired when he came home, he used the trusty latchkey and went to
her room to imprint on her lips the good-night kiss. He did this, the
biographer would have us believe, to convince the good mother that his
breath was what it should be; and he awakened her so she would know the
hour was seasonable.

In many manufactories there is an electric apparatus wherewith every
employee registers when he arrives, by turning a key or pushing a button.
Robert Browning always fearlessly registered as soon as he got home--this
according to Mrs. Orr.

Unfortunately, or otherwise, there is a little scattered information which
makes us believe that Robert Browning's mother was not so fearful of her
son's conduct, nor suspicious as to his breath, as to lie awake nights and
keep tab on his hours. The world has never denied that Robert Browning was
entrusted with a latchkey, and it cares little if occasionally, early in
life, he fumbled for the keyhole. And my conception of his character is
such that, when in the few instances Aurora, rosy goddess of the morn,
marked his homecoming with chrome-red in the eastern sky, he did not
search the sleeping-rooms for his mother to apprise her of the hour.

In one place Mrs. Orr avers, in a voice hushed with emotion, that Browning