es. He never read them, for he had long lost the habit of reading,
but he liked to turn the pages, look at the illustrations if they were
illustrated, and mend the bindings. He welcomed wet days because on them
he could stay at home without pangs of conscience and spend the afternoon
with white of egg and a glue-pot, patching up the Russia leather of some
battered quarto. He had many volumes of old travels, with steel
engravings, and Mrs. Carey quickly found two which described Palestine.
She coughed elaborately at the door so that Philip should have time to
compose himself, she felt that he would be humiliated if she came upon him
in the midst of his tears, then she rattled the door handle. When she went
in Philip was poring over the prayer-book, hiding his eyes with his hands
so that she might not see he had been crying.

"Do you know the collect yet?" she said.

He did not answer for a moment, and she felt that he did not trust his
voice. She was oddly embarrassed.

"I can't learn it by heart," he said at last, with a gasp.

"Oh, well, never mind," she said. "You needn't. I've got some picture
books for you to look at. Come and sit on my lap, and we'll look at them
together."

Philip slipped off his chair and limped over to her. He looked down so
that she should not see his eyes. She put her arms round him.

"Look," she said, "that's the place where our blessed Lord was born."

She showed him an Eastern town with flat roofs and cupolas and minarets.
In the foreground was a group of palm-trees, and under them were resting
two Arabs and some camels. Philip passed his hand over the picture as if
he wanted to feel the houses and the loose habiliments of the nomads.

"Read what it says," he asked.

Mrs. Carey in her even voice read the opposite page. It was a romantic
narrative of some Eastern traveller of the thirties, pompous maybe, but
fragrant with the emotion with which the East came to the generation that
followed Byron and Chateaubriand. In a moment or two Philip interrupted
her.

"I want to see another picture."

When Mary Ann came in and Mrs. Carey rose to help her lay the cloth.
Philip took the book in his hands and hurried through the illustrations.
It was with difficulty that his aunt induced him to put the book down for
tea. He had forgotten his horrible struggle to get the collect by heart;
he had forgotten his tears. Next day it was raining, and he asked for the
book again. Mrs. Carey gave it hi