PARSON (overjoyed).--"Power!--the vulgarest application of it, or the loftiest? But you mean the loftiest?"

RANDAL (in his turn interested and interrogative).--"What do you call the loftiest, and what the vulgarest?"

PARSON.--"The vulgarest, self-interest; the loftiest, beneficence."

Randal suppressed the half-disdainful smile that rose to his lip.

"You speak, Sir, as a clergyman should do. I admire your sentiment, and adopt it; but I fear that the knowledge which aims only at beneficence very rarely in this world gets any power at all."

SQUIRE (seriously).--"That's true; I never get my own way when I want to do a kindness, and Stirn always gets his when he insists on something diabolically brutal and harsh."

PARSON.--"Pray, Mr. Leslie, what does intellectual power refined to the utmost, but entirely stripped of beneficence, most resemble?"

RANDAL.--"Resemble?--I can hardly say. Some very great man--almost any very great man--who has baffled all his foes, and attained all his ends."

PARSON.--"I doubt if any man has ever become very great who has not meant to be beneficent, though he might err in the means. Caesar was naturally beneficent, and so was Alexander. But intellectual power refined to the utmost, and wholly void of beneficence, resembles only one being, and that, sir, is the Principle of Evil."

RANDAL (startled).--"Do you mean the Devil?"

PARSON.--"Yes, Sir, the Devil; and even he, Sir, did not succeed! Even he, Sir, is what your great men would call a most decided failure."

MRS. DALE.--"My dear, my dear!"

PARSON.--"Our religion proves it, my love; he was an angel, and he fell."

There was a solemn pause. Randal was more impressed than he liked to own to himself. By this time the dinner was over, and the servants had retired. Harry glanced at Carry. Carry smoothed her gown and rose.

The gentlemen remained over their wine; and the parson, satisfied with what he deemed a clencher upon his favourite subject of discussion, changed the subject to lighter topics, till, happening to fall upon t.i.thes, the squire struck in, and by dint of loudness of voice, and truculence of brow, fairly overwhelmed both his guests, and proved to his own satisfaction that t.i.thes were an unjust and unchristianlike usurpation on the part of the Church generally, and a most especial and iniquitous infliction upon the Hazeldean estates in particular.

CHAPTER IX.

On entering the drawing-room, Randal found the two ladies seated close together, in a position much more appropriate to the familiarity of their school-days than to the politeness of the friendship now existing between them. Mrs. Hazeldean's hand hung affectionately over Carry's shoulder, and both those fair English faces were bent over the same book. It was pretty to see these sober matrons, so different from each other in character and aspect, thus unconsciously restored to the intimacy of happy maiden youth by the golden link of some Magician from the still land of Truth or Fancy, brought together in heart, as each eye rested on the same thought; closer and closer, as sympathy, lost in the actual world, grew out of that world which unites in one bond of feeling the readers of some gentle book.

"And what work interests you so much?" asked Randal, pausing by the table.

"One you have read, of course," replied Mrs. Dale, putting a book-mark embroidered by herself into the page, and handing the volume to Randal.

"It has made a great sensation, I believe."

Randal glanced at the t.i.tle of the work. "True," said he, "I have heard much of it in London, but I have not yet had time to read it."

MRS. DALE.--"I can lend it to you, if you like to look over it to-night, and you can leave it for me with Mrs. Hazeldean."

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 amus.e.m.e.nt,--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 loan--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 pa.s.sage 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 August evening before a thunderstorm; every wild-flower in the hedgerow exactly the flowers of August, every sign in the air exactly those of the month. Bless you! a woman would have filled the hedge with violets and cowslips. n.o.body else but my friend Moss could have written that description."

SQUIRE.--"I don't know; there's a simile about the waste of corn-seed in hand-sowing, which makes me think he must be a farmer!"

MRS. DALE (scornfully).--"A farmer! In hobnailed shoes, I suppose! I say it is a woman."

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"A WOMAN, and A MOTHER!"

PARSON.--"A middle-aged man, and a naturalist."

SQUIRE.--"No, no, Parson, certainly a young man; for that love-scene puts me in mind of my own young days, when I would have given my ears to tell Harry how handsome I thought her; and all I could say was, 'Fine weather for the crops, Miss.' Yes, a young man and a farmer. I should not wonder if he had held the plough himself."

RANDAL (who had been turning over the pages).--"This sketch of Night in London comes from a man who has lived the life of cities and looked at wealth with the eyes of poverty. Not bad! I will read the book."

"Strange," said the parson, smiling, "that this little work should so have entered into our minds, suggested to all of us different ideas, yet equally charmed all,--given a new and fresh current to our dull country life, animated us as with the sight of a world in our b.r.e.a.s.t.s we had never seen before save in dreams: a little work like this by a man we don't know and never may! Well, that knowledge is power, and a n.o.ble one!"