cholar, as you are, though I read a
great deal. I have always noticed that the men who accumulate great
libraries do not know much, and the men who know a great deal have very
few books. Now I will wager that you have not a thousand volumes in your
house, Mr. Ambrose."

"Five hundred would be nearer the mark," said the vicar.

"The fewer one has the nearer one approaches to Aquinas's _homo unius
libri_," returned the squire. "You are nine thousand five hundred degrees
nearer to ideal wisdom than I am."

Mr. Ambrose laughed.

"Nevertheless," he said, "you may be sure that if you give me leave to
use your books, I will take advantage of the permission. It is in writing
sermons that one feels the want of a good library."

"I should think it would be an awful bore to write sermons," remarked the
squire with such perfect innocence that both the vicar and Mrs. Goddard
laughed loudly. But Mrs. Ambrose eyed Mr. Juxon with renewed severity.

"I should fancy it would be a much greater bore, as you call it, to the
congregation if my husband never wrote any new ones," she said stiffly.
Whereat the squire looked rather puzzled, and coloured a little. But Mr.
Ambrose came to the rescue.

"Yes, indeed, my wife is quite right. There are no people with such
terrible memories as churchwardens. They remember a sermon twenty years
old. But as you say, the writing of sermons is not an easy task when a
man has been at it for thirty years and more. A man begins by being
enthusiastic, then his mind gets into a groove and for some time, if he
happens to like the groove, he writes very well. But by and by he has
written all there is to be said in the particular line he has chosen and
he does not know how to choose another. That is the time when a man needs
a library to help him."

"I really don't think you have reached that point, Mr. Ambrose," remarked
Mrs. Goddard. She admired the vicar and liked his sermons.

"You are fortunately not in the position of my churchwardens," answered
Mr. Ambrose. "You have not been listening to me for thirty years."

"How long have you been my tenant, Mrs. Goddard?" asked the squire.

"Nearly two years," she answered thoughtfully, and her sad eyes rested a
moment upon Mr. Juxon's face with an expression he remembered. Indeed he
looked at her very often and as he looked his admiration increased, so
that when he rose to take his leave the predominant impression of the
vicarage which remained in his mind