"I can tell you why, Alice," said Montague. "In reading works of the imagination, persons of feeling unconsciously identify themselves with the favorite character; and then in a day or two, and sometimes in a few hours, their feelings are taxed with those scenes of sorrow and excitement, which in real life are scattered through months, or perhaps years. The greater part of life is made up of comparative trifles, which make little demand on the feelings, and scenes of sorrow and excitement are 'few and far between,' like the convulsions of the elements--which, though often distressing, and sometimes disastrous, are, on the whole, highly beneficial. But were the elements always at war, nature would soon sink to dissolution; and so if the mind and the heart were constantly raised to a state of high excitement, their energies would soon be exhausted, and the corporeal part would soon sink in the conflict. Do you read novels, Miss Claremont?" inquired Montague. "Sometimes, but not often," Margarette replied. "And do they affect you as they do cousin Alice?" "Affect her?" cried Alice--"no, indeed! I never saw her moved to tears, by reading, but once in my life." "And pray what was she then reading?" asked Montague, with a smile. "A little penny tract, called 'Old Sarah, the Indian Woman'"--said Alice. "Over that she actually wept!" "Did you read the tract, cousin Alice?" "Yes--from mere curiosity, after witnessing the wonderful effect it produced." "And did it call forth your tears?" "No, certainly not!--Sarah was a good old creature, to be sure, but there was nothing in the tract to touch one's sensibility; and I could never conceive what there was in it, that so moved Margarette." "Pho, pho, Alice," said Mr. Claremont, "Margarette is not the Stoic you represent her. I caught her no longer ago than this very morning, with a tear in her eye, while reading." "My dear uncle," said Margarette, in a supplicating tone, while the pure blood in her cheeks rushed to her temples. "What _was_ she reading, uncle?" cried Alice. "None of your lackadaisical nonsense, you may be certain, Alice," said Mr. Claremont. "She was reading a newspaper." Alice laughed outright. "Not so laughable an affair, neither, my dear," said Mr. Claremont, "as she was reading of the bravery and sufferings of the poor unfortunate"---- "Dear uncle!" again ejaculated Margarette. "Poles," added Mr. Claremont, without noticing the interruption. "The Poles? O yes," said Alice. "There was 'Thaddeus of Warsaw'--he was a divine creature! Well might one weep at the recital of his sufferings!"