"Why won't you talk with me of books. There are some books I adore. Let us talk about Dickens." "With all my heart. I admire every line he wrote--I think him the greatest genius of this age. We have had great writers--great thinkers--great masters of style--but Scott and Dickens were the Creators--they made new worlds and peopled them. I am quite ready to talk about Dickens." "I don't think I could say a single word after that outburst of yours," said Dopsy; "you go too fast for me." He had talked eagerly, willing to talk just now even to Miss Vandeleur, trying not too vividly to remember that other day--that unforgotten hour--in which, on this spot, face to face with that ever changing, ever changeless sea, he had submitted his fate to Christabel, not daring to ask for her love, warning her rather against the misery that might come to her from loving him. And misery had come, but not as he presaged. It had come from his youthful sin, that one fatal turn upon the road of life which he had taken so lightly, tripping with joyous companions along a path strewn with roses. He, like so many, had gathered his roses while he might, and had found that he had to bear the sting of their thorns when he must. Leonard came up behind them as they talked, Mr. Hamleigh standing by Miss Vandeleur's side, digging his stick into the heather and staring idly at the sea. "What are you two talking about so earnestly?" he asked; "you are always together. I begin to understand why Hamleigh is so indifferent to sport." The remark struck Angus as strange, as well as underbred. Dopsy had contrived to inflict a good deal of her society upon him at odd times; but he had taken particular care that nothing in his bearing or discourse should compromise either himself or the young lady. Dopsy giggled faintly, and looked modestly at the heather. It was still early in the afternoon, and the western light shone full upon a face which might have been pretty if Nature's bloom had not long given place to the poetic pallor of the powder-puff. "We were talking about Dickens," said Dopsy, with an elaborate air of struggling with the tumult of her feelings. "Don't you adore him?" "If you mean the man who wrote books, I never read 'em," answered Leonard; "life isn't long enough for books that don't teach you anything. I've read pretty nearly every book that was ever written upon horses and dogs and guns, and a good many on mechanics; that's enough for me. I don't care for books that only titillate one's imagination. Why should one read books to make oneself cry and to make oneself laugh? It's as idiotic a habit as taking snuff to make oneself sneeze." "That's rather a severe way of looking at the subject," said Angus.