, reading, telling of what had been, dreaming of
what might be.

The Library was one of the chief centres of the fixed population, and
visited often by strangers. The old Librarian was a peculiar character,
as these officials are apt to be. They have a curious kind of knowledge,
sometimes immense in its way. They know the backs of books, their
title-pages, their popularity or want of it, the class of readers who
call for particular works, the value of different editions, and a good
deal besides. Their minds catch up hints from all manner of works on all
kinds of subjects. They will give a visitor a fact and a reference which
they are surprised to find they remember and which the visitor might have
hunted for a year. Every good librarian, every private book-owner, who
has grown into his library, finds he has a bunch of nerves going to every
bookcase, a branch to every shelf, and a twig to every book. These
nerves get very sensitive in old librarians, sometimes, and they do not
like to have a volume meddled with any more than they would like to have
their naked eyes handled. They come to feel at last that the books of a
great collection are a part, not merely of their own property, though
they are only the agents for their distribution, but that they are, as it
were, outlying portions of their own organization. The old Librarian was
getting a miserly feeling about his books, as he called them.
Fortunately, he had a young lady for his assistant, who was never so
happy as when she could find the work any visitor wanted and put it in
his hands,--or her hands, for there were more readers among the wives
and--daughters, and especially among the aunts, than there were among
their male relatives. The old Librarian knew the books, but the books
seemed to know the young assistant; so it looked, at least, to the
impatient young people who wanted their services.

Maurice had a good many volumes of his own,--a great many, according to
Paolo's account; but Paolo's ideas were limited, and a few well-filled
shelves seemed a very large collection to him. His master frequently
sent him to the Public Library for books, which somewhat enlarged his
notions; still, the Signor was a very learned man, he was certain, and
some of his white books (bound in vellum and richly gilt) were more
splendid, according to Paolo, than anything in the Library.

There was no little curiosity to know what were the books that Maurice
was in the habit of takin