I.—MR. WORDSWORTH AND THE LITTLE COTTAGE GIRL.
"I met a little cottage girl,
She was eight years old she said,
Her hair was thick with many a curl
That clustered round her head."
WORDSWORTH.
This is what really happened.
Over the dreary downs of his native Cumberland the aged laureate was wandering with bowed head and countenance of sorrow.
Times were bad with the old man.