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.”