A prompt step was heard on the stairs, and the young person addressed as
Faith entered the room. She was small in figure, and bore less in the
form of her features than in their shades when changing from expression
to expression the evidence that she was his sister.

'Faith--I want your opinion. But, stop, read this first.' He laid his
finger upon a page in the book, and placed it in her hand.

The girl drew from her pocket a little green-leather sheath, worn at the
edges to whity-brown, and out of that a pair of spectacles, unconsciously
looking round the room for a moment as she did so, as if to ensure that
no stranger saw her in the act of using them. Here a weakness was
uncovered at once; it was a small, pretty, and natural one; indeed, as
weaknesses go in the great world, it might almost have been called a
commendable trait. She then began to read, without sitting down.

These 'Metres by E.' composed a collection of soft and marvellously
musical rhymes, of a nature known as the vers de societe. The lines
presented a series of playful defences of the supposed strategy of
womankind in fascination, courtship, and marriage--the whole teeming with
ideas bright as mirrors and just as unsubstantial, yet forming a
brilliant argument to justify the ways of girls to men. The pervading
characteristic of the mass was the means of forcing into notice, by
strangeness of contrast, the single mournful poem that the book
contained. It was placed at the very end, and under the title of
'Cancelled Words,' formed a whimsical and rather affecting love-lament,
somewhat in the tone of many of Sir Thomas Wyatt's poems. This was the
piece which had arrested Christopher's attention, and had been pointed
out by him to his sister Faith.