ffirmative. The top shelf of the
home-made case sagged with the ineffable slusheries of that most popular
and pious of novelists, Harvey Wheelwright. Near by, "How to Behave on
All Occasions" held forth its unimpeachable precepts, while a little
beyond, "Botany Made Easy" and "The Perfect Letter Writer" proffered
further aid to the aspiring mind. Improvement, stark, blatant
Improvement, advertised itself from that culturous and reeking
compartment. But just below--Io was tempted to rub her eyes--stood
Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy"; a Browning, complete; that inimitably
jocund fictional prank, Frederic's "March Hares," together with the same
author's fine and profoundly just "Damnation of Theron Ware"; Taylor's
translation of Faust; "The [broken-backed] Egoist"; "Lavengro" (Io
touched its magic pages with tender fingers), and a fat, faded, reddish
volume so worn and obscured that she at once took it down and made
explorative entry. She was still deep in it when the owner arrived.

"Have you found enough to keep you amused?"

She looked up from the pages and seemed to take him all in anew before
answering. "Hardly the word. Bewildered would be nearer the feeling."

"It's a queerish library, I suppose," he said apologetically.

"If I believed in dual personality--" she began; but broke off to hold
up the bulky veteran. "Where did you get 'The Undying Voices'?"

"Oh, that's a windfall. What a bully title for a collection of the great
poetries, isn't it!"

She nodded, one caressing hand on the open book, the other propping her
chin as she kept the clear wonder of her eyes upon him.

"It makes you think of singers making harmony together in a great open
space. I'd like to know the man who made the selections," he concluded.

"What kind of a windfall?" she asked.

"A real one. Pullman travelers sometimes prop their windows open with
books. You can see the window-mark on the cover of this one. I found it
two miles out, beside the right-of-way. There was no name in it, so I
kept it. It's the book I read most except one."

"What's the one?"

He laughed, holding up the still more corpulent Sears-Roebuck catalogue.

"Ah," said she gravely. "That accounts, I suppose, for the top shelf."

"Yes, mostly."

"Do you like them? The Conscientious Improvers, I mean?"

"I think they're bunk."

"Then why did you get them?"

"Oh, I suppose I was looking for something," he returned; and though his
tone was careless, she n