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 _naiveté_.)--"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 August evening before a thunderstorm; every wildflower 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. Nobody 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 hob-nailed 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."