"The new fiction is detestable,"--I said hotly--"Both in style and morality. Even as a question of literature I wonder at your condescending to read any of it. The woman whose dirty book I have just thrown away--and I feel no compunction for having done it,--is destitute of grammar as well as decency." "Oh, but the critics don't notice that,"--she interrupted, with a delicate mockery vibrating in her voice--"It is apparently not their business to assist in preserving the purity of the English language. What they fall into raptures over is the originality of the 'sexual' theme, though I should have thought all such matters were as old as the hills. I never read reviews as a rule, but I did happen to come across one on the book you have just drowned,--and in it, the reviewer stated he had cried over it!" She laughed again. "Beast!" I said emphatically--"He probably found in it some glozing-over of his own vices. But you, Sibyl--why do you read such stuff?--how can you read it?" "Curiosity moved me in the first place,"--she answered listlessly--"I wanted to see what makes a reviewer cry! Then when I began to read, I found that the story was all about the manner in which men amuse themselves with the soiled doves of the highways and bye-ways,--and as I was not very well instructed in that sort of thing, I thought I might as well learn! You know these unpleasant morsels of information on unsavoury subjects are like the reputed suggestions of the devil,--if you listen to one, you are bound to hear more. Besides, literature is supposed to reflect the time we live in,--and that kind of literature being more prevalent than anything else, we are compelled to accept and study it as the mirror of the age." With an expression on her face that was half mirth and half scorn, she rose from her seat, and looked down into the lovely lake below her. "The fishes will eat that book,--" she observed--"I hope it will not poison them! If they could read and understand it, what singular ideas they would have of us human beings!" "Why don't you read Mavis Clare's books?" I asked suddenly--"You told me you admired her." "So I do,--immensely!" she answered,--"I admire her and wonder at her, both together. How that woman can keep her child's heart and child's faith in a world like this, is more than I can understand. It is always a perfect marvel to me,--a sort of supernatural surprise. You ask me why don't I read her books,--I do read them,--I've read them all over and over again,--but she does not write many, and one has to wait for her productions longer than for those of most authors. When I want to feel like an angel, I read Mavis Clare,--but I more often am inclined to feel the other way, and then her books are merely so many worries to me." "Worries?" I echoed.