," replied the girl.

"Well, then," said Mr. Tolman, "here are three cents. You can go and
buy the milk for me, and then you can borrow it. Will that suit?"

The girl thought it would suit very well, and away she went.

Even this little incident pleased Mr. Tolman. It was so very novel.
When he came back from his dinner in the evening, he found two
circulating library subscribers stamping their feet on the door-step,
and he afterwards heard that several others had called and gone away.
It would certainly injure the library if he suspended business at
meal-times. He could easily have his choice of a hundred boys if he
chose to advertise for one, but he shrank from having a youngster in
the place. It would interfere greatly with his cosiness and his
experiences. He might possibly find a boy who went to school, and who
would be willing to come at noon and in the evening if he were paid
enough. But it would have to be a very steady and responsible boy. He
would think it over before taking any steps.

He thought it over for a day or two, but he did not spend his whole
time in doing so. When he had no customers, he sauntered about in the
little parlor over the shop, with its odd old furniture, its quaint
prints on the walls, and its absurd ornaments on the mantelpiece. The
other little rooms seemed almost as funny to him, and he was sorry when
the bell on the shop door called him down from their contemplation. It
was pleasant to him to think that he owned all these odd things. The
ownership of the varied goods in the shop also gave him an agreeable
feeling which none of his other possessions had ever afforded him. It
was all so odd and novel.

He liked much to look over the books in the library. Many of them were
old novels, the names of which were familiar enough to him, but which
he had never read. He determined to read some of them as soon as he
felt fixed and settled.

In looking over the book in which the names and accounts of the
subscribers were entered, he amused himself by wondering what sort of
persons they were who had out certain books. Who, for instance, wanted
to read "The Book of Cats," and who could possibly care for "The
Mysteries of Udolpho"? But the unknown person in regard to whom Mr.
Tolman felt the greatest curiosity was the subscriber who now had in
his possession a volume entitled "Dormstock's Logarithms of the
Diapason."

"How on earth," exclaimed Mr. Tolman, "did such a book