in vain. She wrote verses and, very sensibly, kept them locked in her
workbox; and then she painted in water-colors and worked in worsted. A
thoroughly good woman, she was far above the average in character, with a
half-minor key in her voice and a tinge of the heartbroken in her
composition, caused no one just knew how. Probably a certain young curate
at Saint Margaret's could have thrown light on this point; but he married,
took on a double chin, moved away to a fat living and never told.

No woman is ever wise or good until destiny has subdued her by grinding
her fondest hopes into the dust.

Lizzie Flower was wise and good.

She gave singing lessons to the Browning children. She taught Master
Robert Browning to draw.

She read to him some of her verses that were in the sewing-table drawer.
And her sister, Sarah Flower, two years older, afterwards Sarah Flower
Adams, read aloud to them a hymn she had just written, called, "Nearer, My
God, to Thee."

Then soon Master Robert showed the Flower girls some of the verses he had
written.

Robert liked Lizzie Flower first-rate, and told his mother so. A young
woman never cares anything for an unlicked cub, nine years younger than
herself, unless Fate has played pitch and toss with her heart's true love.
And then, the tendrils of the affections being ruthlessly lacerated and
uprooted, they cling to the first object that presents itself.