fiction that was not
almost classic. Even Stevenson aroused her suspicions.

"Well, here's 'The Wrecker,'" observed Landry, handing it up to her. "I
read it last summer-vacation at Waukesha. Just about took the top of my
head off."

"I tried to read it," she answered. "Such an outlandish story, no love
story in it, and so coarse, so brutal, and then so improbable. I
couldn't get interested."

But abruptly Landry uttered an exclamation:

"Well, what do you call this? 'Wanda,' by Ouida. How is this for
modern?"

She blushed to her hair, snatching the book from him.

"Page brought it home. It's hers."

But her confusion betrayed her, and Landry shouted derisively.

"Well, I did read it then," she suddenly declared defiantly. "No, I'm
not ashamed. Yes, I read it from cover to cover. It made me cry like I
haven't cried over a book since I was a little tot. You can say what
you like, but it's beautiful--a beautiful love story--and it does tell
about noble, unselfish people. I suppose it has its faults, but it
makes you feel better for reading it, and that's what all your
'Wreckers' in the world would never do."

"Well," answered Landry, "I don't know much about that sort of thing.
Corthell does. He can talk you blind about literature. I've heard him
run on by the hour. He says the novel of the future is going to be the
novel without a love story."

But Laura nodded her head incredulously.

"It will be long after I am dead--that's one consolation," she said.

"Corthell is full of crazy ideas anyhow," Landry went on, still
continuing to pass the books up to her. "He's a good sort, and I like
him well enough, but he's the kind of man that gets up a reputation for
being clever and artistic by running down the very one particular thing
that every one likes, and cracking up some book or picture or play that
no one has ever heard of. Just let anything get popular once and
Sheldon Corthell can't speak of it without shuddering. But he'll go
over here to some Archer Avenue pawn shop, dig up an old brass stewpan,
or coffee-pot that some greasy old Russian Jew has chucked away, and
he'll stick it up in his studio and regularly kow-tow to it, and talk
about the 'decadence of American industrial arts.' I've heard him. I
say it's pure affectation, that's what it is, pure affectation."

But the book-case meanwhile had been filling up, and now Laura remarked:

"No more, Landry. That's all that will go here."

She prepared