* * * * *

Here Elizabeth Eliza came to a pause. She had written five different
endings, and had brought them all, thinking, when the moment came,
she would choose one of them. She was pausing to select one, and
inadvertently said, to close the phrase, "you don't." She had not meant
to use the expression, which she would not have thought sufficiently
imposing,--it dropped out unconsciously,--but it was received as a close
with rapturous applause.

She had read slowly, and now that the audience applauded at such a
length, she had time to feel she was much exhausted and glad of an end.
Why not stop there, though there were some pages more? Applause, too,
was heard from the outside. Some of the gentlemen had come,--Mr.
Peterkin, Agamemnon, and Solomon John, with others,--and demanded
admission.

"Since it is all over, let them in," said Ann Maria Bromwick.

Elizabeth Eliza assented, and rose to shake hands with her applauding
friends.




II.

ELIZABETH ELIZA'S COMMONPLACE-BOOK.