d not distress her because she
had never cared for reading. Upon the little hanging shelf above her
bed (deal wood painted white, with blue cornflowers) were The Heir of
Redclyffe, a shabby blue-covered copy, Ministering Children, Madame How
and Lady Why, The Imitation of Christ, Robinson Crusoe, Mrs. Beeton's
Cookery Book, The Holy Bible, and The Poems of Longfellow. These had
been given her upon various Christmasses and birthdays. She did not
care for any of them except The Imitation of Christ and Robinson
Crusoe. The Bible was spoilt for her by incessant services and Sunday
School classes; The Heir of Redclyffe and Ministering Children she
found absurdly sentimental and unlike any life that she had ever known;
Mrs. Beeton she had never opened, and Longfellow and Kingsley's Natural
History she found dull. For Robinson Crusoe she had the intense human
sympathy that all lonely people feel for that masterpiece. The
Imitation pleased her by what she would have called its common sense.
Such a passage, for example: "Oftentimes something lurketh within, or
else occurreth from without, which draweth us after it. Many secretly
seek themselves in what they do, and know it not."

"They seem also to live in good peace of mind, when things are done
according to their will and opinion; but if things happen otherwise
than they desire, they are straightway moved and much vexed."

And behind this common sense she did seem to be directly in touch with
some one whom she might find had she more time and friends to advise
her. She was conscious in her lonely hours, that nothing gave her such
a feeling of company as did this little battered red book, and she felt
that that friendliness might one day advance to some greater intimacy.
About these things she was intensely reserved and she spoke of them to
no human being.

Even for the books for whose contents she did not care she had a kindly
feeling. So often had they looked down upon her when she sat there
exasperated, angry at her own tears, rebellious, after some scene with
her father. No other place but this room had seen these old agonies of
hers. She would be sorry after all to leave it.

There were not many things beside the books. Two bowls of blue
Glebeshire pottery, cheap things but precious, a box plastered with
coloured shells, an amber bead necklace, a blue leather writing-case, a
photograph of her father as a young clergyman with a beard and
whiskers, a faded daguerreotype