"
"That you sha'n't," roared Lascelles, catching them out of the boy's
hand; "if they are your writing, we will have them."
"Help me, Mary!" cried Euphemia, turning to Miss Beaufort; "I know
that nobody is a poet in this house but myself. They must be mine,
and I will have them."
"Surely, Mr. Lascelles," said Mary, compassionating the poor girl's
anxiety, "you will not be so rude as to detain them from their right
owner?"
"Oh! but I will," cried he, mounting on a table to get out of
Euphemia's reach, who, half crying, tried to snatch at the paper.
"Let me alone, Miss Phemy. I will read them; so here goes it."
Miss Dundas laughed at her sister's confused looks, whilst Lascelles
prepared to read in a loud voice the following verses. They had been
hastily written in pencil by Thaddeus a long time ago; and having put
them, by mistake, with some other papers into his pocket, he had
dropped them next day, in taking out his handkerchief at Lady
Dundas's. Lascelles cleared his throat with three hems, then raising
his right hand with a flourishing action, in a very pompous tone
began--
"Like one whom Etna's torrent fires have sent
Far from the land where his first youth was spent;
Who, inly drooping on a foreign shore,
Broods over scenes which charm his eyes no more:
And while his country's ruin wakes the groan,
Yearns for the buried hut he called his own.
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