the character and contents of these three volumes. Indeed, he had more
than time for all the brief scrutiny he deemed necessary; when Lionel
Moore reappeared, to get finally quit of his theatrical trappings for
the night, his friend was standing at the fireplace, looking at a sketch
in brown chalk of Miss Burgoyne, which that amiable young lady had
herself presented to Harry Thornhill.

"Well, what's the verdict?"

Mangan turned round, rather bewildered; and then he recollected that he
had been glancing at the novel.

"Oh, _that_!" he said, regarding the three volumes with no very
favorable air, "Mighty poor stuff, I should say; just about as weak as
they make it. But harmless. Some of the conversation--between the
women--is natural; trivial, but natural. The plain truth is, my dear
Linn, it is a very foolish, stupid book, which should never have been
printed at all; but I suppose your fashionable friend could afford to
pay for having it printed."

"But, look here, Maurice," Lionel said, in considerable surprise, "I
don't see how it can be so very stupid, when Lady Adela herself is one
of the brightest, cleverest, shrewdest, most intelligent women you could
meet with anywhere--quite unusually so."

"That may be; but she is not the first clever woman who has made the
mistake of imagining that because she is socially popular she must
therefore be able to write a book."

"And what am I to say to Octavius Quirk?"