Her acquaintance, the artist, who appeared to have a literary turn, had supplied her with works of fiction, in pamphlet form, — and a few volumes of poetry, in altogether a different style and taste from those which Hepzibah selected for his amusement. Small thanks were due to the books, however, if the girl’s readings were in any degree more successful than her elderly cousin’s. Phoebe’s voice had always a pretty music in it, and could either enliven Clifford by its sparkle and gayety of tone, or soothe him by a continued flow of pebbly and brook-like cadences. But the fictions — in which the country-girl, unused to works of that nature, often became deeply absorbed — interested her strange auditor very little, or not at all.

Pictures of life, scenes of passion or sentiment, wit,