AND LETTERS.
139
cally, though unavailingly, exercised for their accomplishment, there can be no hasty or indiscriminate condemnation.
The completion of her "Drawing-room Scrapbook," and the fulfilment of other minor engagements, occupied all her literary time until the period of her marriage, and her consequent departure for the African shores.
1837 and 1838.
Mrs. Sheldon, the lady with whom L. E. L. had resided in Hans'-place, after the retirement of the Misses Lance, removed, in 1837, to Upper Berkeley-street, Connaught-square, West.
Just previous to her leaving Hans'-place, L. E. L. experienced a world of domestic trouble; but it was of no very heart-rending kind; at least the account which she gave of it is not at all in her pathetic style. The reader may judge for himself—and of her good spirits when on the eve of quitting the old house which had been her home so long.
"Do you, my dear Mr. Blanchard, know any person in want of a 'young woman, sober, honest, and good tempered,' 'would not object to waiting on a single gentleman?' If you do, for mercy's sake recommend me. For the last fortnight I have been qualifying for the situation. Everybody has been ill and in bed but myself; one servant gone home, the other turned out at a moment's notice for too great devotion to 'ardent spirits,' and we