_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 _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 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." _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 breasts 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 noble one!" "A sort of power, certainly, sir," said Randal, candidly; and that night, when Randal retired to his own room, he suspended his schemes and projects, and read, as he rarely did, without an object to gain by the reading.