"They can hardly be silly if they care rightly for real poetry,
Bessie," said Miss Fosbrook; "at least, so my papa would say. It has
been one of his great helps. Well, in those days he was very fond of
a poem about a lady called Christabel, who was so good and sweet,
that when evil came near, it could not touch her so as to do her any
harm; and so he gave his little daughter her name."

"How very nice!" cried Elizabeth.

"You must not envy me, my dear, for I have been a good deal laughed
at for my pretty name, and so has Papa; and I do not think he would
have chosen anything so fanciful if he had been a little older."

"Then isn't he--what is it you call it--poetical now?"

"Indeed he is, in a good way;" and as the earnest eyes looked so
warmly at her, Christabel Fosbrook could not help making a friend of
the little maiden. "He has very little time to read it; for you know
he is a parish surgeon in a great parish in London, full of poor
people, worse off than you can imagine, and often very ill. He is
obliged to be always hard at work in the narrow close streets there,
and to see everything sad, and dismal, and disagreeable, that can be
found; but, do you know, Bessie, he always looks for the good and
beautiful side; he looks at one person's patience, and another
person's kindness, and at some little child's love for its mother or
sister, that hinders it from being too painful for him."

"But is that poetry? I thought poetry meant verses."

"Verses are generally the best and most suitable way of expressing