He waited, while Rachel vainly tried to vindicate her sex from the
slight he put upon it.

"I'm afraid he's right," said Clarissa. "He generally is--the wretch!"

"I brought _Persuasion_," she went on, "because I thought it was a
little less threadbare than the others--though, Dick, it's no good
_your_ pretending to know Jane by heart, considering that she always
sends you to sleep!"

"After the labours of legislation, I deserve sleep," said Richard.

"You're not to think about those guns," said Clarissa, seeing that his
eye, passing over the waves, still sought the land meditatively, "or
about navies, or empires, or anything." So saying she opened the book
and began to read:

"'Sir Walter Elliott, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man
who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the
_Baronetage_'--don't you know Sir Walter?--'There he found occupation
for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one.' She does write
well, doesn't she? 'There--'" She read on in a light humorous voice. She
was determined that Sir Walter should take her husband's mind off the
guns of Britain, and divert him in an exquisite, quaint, sprightly, and
slightly ridiculous world. After a time it appeared that the sun was
sinking in that world, and the points becoming softer. Rachel looked
up to see what caused the change. Richard's eyelids were closing and
opening; opening and closing. A loud nasal breath announced that he no
longer considered appearances, that he was sound asleep.