of duplicity on certain occasions, and where certain feelings of
her own are concerned? I would rather not think that; and yet I
don't know how to account otherwise for the masterly manner in
which Miss Jessie contrived to baffle me.

I was afraid--literally afraid--to broach the subject of
prolonging her sojourn with us on a rainy day, so I changed the
topic, in despair, to the novels that were scattered about her.

"Can you find nothing there," I asked, "to amuse you this wet
morning?"

"There are two or three good novels," she said, carelessly, "but
I read them before I left London."

"And the others won't even do for a dull day in the country?" I
went on.

"They might do for some people," she answered, "but not for me.
I'm rather peculiar, perhaps, in my tastes. I'm sick to death of
novels with an earnest purpose. I'm sick to death of outbursts of
eloquence, and large-minded philanthropy, and graphic
descriptions, and unsparing anatomy of the human heart, and all
that sort of thing. Good gracious me! isn't it the original
intention or purpose, or whatever you call it, of a work of
fiction, to set out distinctly by telling a story? And how many
of these books, I should like to know, do that? Why, so far as
telling a story is concerned, the greater part of them might as
well be sermons as novels. Oh, dear me! what I want is something
that seizes hold of my interest, and makes me forget when it is