The work surprised him by the pleasure it gave. Its charm lay in the writer's calm enjoyment of the Beautiful. It seemed like some happy soul sunning itself in the light of its own thoughts. Its power was so tranquil and even, that it was only a critic who could perceive how much force and vigor were necessary to sustain the wing that floated aloft with so imperceptible an effort. There was no one faculty predominating tyrannically over the others; all seemed proportioned in the felicitous symmetry of a nature rounded, integral, and complete. And when the work was closed, it left behind it a tender warmth that played around the heart of the reader, and vivified feelings that seemed unknown before. Randal laid the book down softly; and for five minutes the ignoble and base purposes to which his own knowledge was applied, stood before him, naked and unmasked. "Tut," said he, wrenching himself violently away from the benign influence, "it was not to sympathize with Hector, but to conquer with Achilles, that Alexander of Macedon kept Homer under his pillow. Such should be the use of books to him who has the practical world to subdue; let parsons and women construe it otherwise as they may!" And the Principle of Evil descended again upon the intellect, from which the guide of beneficence was gone. CHAPTER X. Randal rose at the sound of the first breakfast bell, and on the staircase met Mrs. Hazeldean. He gave her back the book; and as he was about to speak, she beckoned to him to follow her into a little morning-room appropriated to herself. No boudoir of white and gold, with pictures by Watteau, but lined with walnut-tree presses, that held the old heir-loom linen strewed with lavender--stores for the housekeeper, and medicines for the poor. Seating herself on a large chair in this sanctum, Mrs. Hazeldean looked formidably at home. "Pray," said the lady, coming at once to the point with her usual straightforward candor, "what is all this you have been saying to my husband as to the possibility of Frank's marrying a foreigner?" _Randal._--"Would you be as averse to such a notion as Mr. Hazeldean is?" _Mrs. Hazeldean._--"You ask me a question, instead of answering mine."