promised to do it."

The sketch was made,--the last Julie ever drew,--but it remained
amongst the receiver's own treasures. She was so much delighted with
it, she could not make up her mind to give it away, and Julie laughed
many times with pleasure as she reflected on the unexpected success
that had crowned her final effort.

I spoke of "Melchior's Dream" and must revert to it again, for though
it was written when my sister was only nineteen, I do not think she
has surpassed it in any of her later _domestic_ tales. Some of the
writing in the introduction may be rougher and less finished than she
was capable of in after-years, but the originality, power, and pathos
of the Dream itself are beyond doubt. In it, too, she showed the
talent which gives the highest value to all her work--that of teaching
deep religious lessons without disgusting her readers by any approach
to cant or goody-goodyism.

During the years 1862 to 1868, we kept up a MS. magazine, and, of
course, Julie was our principal contributor. Many of her poems on
local events were genuinely witty, and her serial tales the backbone
of the periodical. The best of these was called "The Two Abbots: a
Tale of Second Sight," and in the course of it she introduced a hymn,
which was afterwards set to music by Major Ewing and published in
Boosey's Royal Edition of "Sacred Songs," under the title "From
Fleeting Pleasures."

The words of this hymn, and of two others which she wrote for the use
of our Sunday school children at Whitsuntide in the respective years
1864 and 1866 have all been published in vol. ix. of the present