_Parson_, (approaching.)--"Oh! that book!--yes, you must read it. I do
not know a work more instructive."

_Randal._--"Instructive! Certainly I will read it then. But I thought it
was a mere work of amusement--of fancy. It seems so, as I look over it."

_Parson._--"So is the _Vicar of Wakefield_; yet what book more
instructive?"

_Randal._--"I should not have said _that_ of the _Vicar of Wakefield_. A
pretty book enough, though the story is most improbable. But how is it
instructive?"

_Parson._--"By its results: it leaves us happier and better. What can
any instruction do more? Some works instruct through the head, some
through the heart; the last reach the widest circle, and often produce
the most genial influence on the character. This book belongs to the
last. You will grant my proposition when you have read it."

Randal smiled and took the volume.

_Mrs. Dale._--"Is the author known yet?"

_Randal._--"I have heard it ascribed to many writers, but I believe no
one has claimed it."

_Parson._--"I think it must have been written by my old college friend,
Professor Moss, the naturalist; its descriptions of scenery are so
accurate."

_Mrs. Dale._--"La, Charles, dear! that snuffy, tiresome, prosy
professor? How can you talk such nonsense? I am sure the author must be
young; there is so much freshness of feeling."

_Mrs. Hazeldean_, (positively,)--"Yes, certainly young."

_Parson_, (no less positively.)--"I should say just the contrary. Its
tone is too serene, and its style too simple for a young man. Besides, I
don't know any young man who would send me his book, and this book has
been sent me--very handsomely bound too, you see. Depend upon it, Moss
is the man--quite his turn of mind."

_Mrs. Dale._--"You are too provoking, Charles dear! Mr. Moss is so
remarkably plain, too."

_Randal._--"Must an author be handsome?"

_Parson._--"Ha, ha! Answer that, if you can, Carry."

Carry remained mute and disdainful.

_Squire_, (with great _naivete_.)--"Well, I don't think there's much in
the book, whoever wrote it; for I've read it myself, and understand
every word of it."

_Mrs. Dale_.--"I don't see why you should suppose it was written by a
man at all. For my part, I think it must be a woman."

_Mrs. Hazeldean._--"Yes, there's a passage about maternal affection,
which only a woman could have written."

_Parson._--"Pooh, pooh! I should like to see a woman who could have
written that description of an A