ed feeling
of bewilderment. None of the articles were signed. And she had no clue
to those that were written by her father or anybody else.

She returned the volumes to their places with a heavy sigh, and
continued to look through the shelves--especially through the rows of
ponderous quartos and octavos, where she thought that her father's works
would probably be found. Simple Lesley! It was quite a shock to her when
at last--after she had relinquished her search in heartsick
disappointment--she suddenly came across a little paper volume bearing
this legend:--

"The Unexplored. By Caspar Brooke. Price One Shilling. Tenth Edition."

She took the book in her hand and gazed at it curiously. This was the
"wonderful book" of which Maurice Kenyon had spoken. This little
shilling pamphlet--really it was little more than a pamphlet! It seemed
an extraordinary thing to her that her father should write _shilling
books_. "A shilling shocker" was a name that Lesley happened to know,
and a thing that she heartily despised. Her taste had been formed on the
best models, and Lady Alice had encouraged her in a critical
disparagement of cheap literature. Still--if Caspar Brooke had written
it, and Maurice Kenyon had recommended it, Lesley felt, with flushing
cheek and suspicious eyes, that it was a thing which she ought to read.

Holding it gingerly, as if it were a dangerous combustible which might
explode at any moment, she hurried away with it to her own room, turned
the key in the lock, and sat down to read.

At the risk of fatiguing my readers, I must say a word or two about
Caspar Brooke's romance "The Unexplored." It had obtained a wonderful
popularity in all English-speaking countries, and was well known in
every quarter of the globe. Even Lady Alice must have seen it advertised
and reviewed and quoted a hundred times. Possibly she had refused to
read it, or closed her eyes to its merits. Possibly what a man wrote
seemed to her of little importance compared to that which a man showed
himself in his daily life. At any rate, she had never mentioned the book
to her daughter Lesley. She certainly moved in a circle which was
slightly deaf to the echoes of literary fame.

"The Unexplored" was one of those powerful romances of an ideal society
with which recent days have made us all familiar. But Caspar's book was
the forerunner of the shoal which the last ten years have cast upon our
shores. He was one of the first to follow in t