ght there were no novels written nowadays like "The Mysteries of
Udolpho," "The Children of the Abbey," and "The Vicar of Wakefield."

"Oh," said the little girl, "isn't this funny! We have the first volume
of 'The Grumbler' and the second of 'The Grandfather.' I don't believe I
can piece them together," with a bright, mirthful expression.

"And I picked those up myself. No; we are interested in the 'Grumbler'
now and must know what became of him."

They were English novels by a Miss Pickering, long since forgotten,
while less worthy ones are remembered.

"We'll walk up after supper and change them," continued Cousin Jennie.

But visitors came in shortly afterward to stay to supper. People were
not specially invited then; and the hostess did not expect to prepare a
feast on ordinary occasions. So Jennie said Hanny might go up alone, if
she didn't mind.

She started gladly, yet a sense of diffidence oppressed her as she stood
at the door, a half guilty consciousness, as if she had no right to the
secret Mrs. Clemm was trying so assiduously to hide.

The poet was pacing up and down the room; but his pallid face and
strange, shining eyes seemed looking out from some other world. Mrs.
Clemm sat by the window with a magazine in her hand.

Hanny preferred her request timidly.

"Oh, come in and hunt them up. Your cousin is quite welcome to anything.
Then there are some upstairs, though I brought down that pile over in
the corner this very morning."

The corner looked attractive. Hanny went thither, and knelt down on the
checked matting. There were two books of engravings containing portraits
of famous people, some old volumes of verse, some new ones, and
magazines.

The volumes she wanted were not among them. But she exhumed something
else that made her forget the slight, nervous man pacing up and down,
and the woman at the window. Turning the leaves of an old novel that had
lost one cover, she came across the name of one of her heroes, "Richard
of the Lion Heart." She had a passion, just then, for English history.
And there was Bulwer's "White Rose of England," in paper covers with a
Harper imprint.

"Could I take these beside?" she asked, with some hesitation.

He glanced over at them as he came to that end of the room.

"Those old novels? Yes. Do they let you read novels?"

"I read almost anything," and Hanny glanced up with rising colour. "But
there are not so many books up here--I live in New York," she a