hat any important thing in
literature had escaped her. "But you've heard of Addison, and Steele,
and Pope, and Swift?"

"Oh yes, we had them at school, when we were reading _Henry Esmond_;
they all came into that. And I remember, now: Colonel Esmond wrote a
number of the _Spectator_ for a surprise to Beatrix; but I thought it
was all a make-up."

"And you don't know about Sir Roger de Coverley?"

"Of course I do! It's what the English call the Virginia Reel. But why
do you ask? I thought we were talking about your reading. I don't see
how you could get an old file of a daily newspaper, but if it amuses
you! _Is_ it so amusing?"

"It's charming, but after one has read it as often as I have one begins
to know it a little too well."

"Yes; and what else have you been reading?"

"Well, Leigh Hunt a little lately. He continues the old essayist
tradition, and he is gently delightful."

"Never heard of him!" the girl frankly declared.

"He was a poet, too, and he wrote the _Story of Rimini_--about Paolo and
Francesca, you know."

"Oh, there you're away off, grandfather! Mr. Philips wrote about _them_;
and that horrid D'Annunzio. Why, Duse gave D'Annunzio's play last
winter! What are you thinking of?"

"Perhaps I am wandering a little," the grandfather meekly submitted, and
the girl had to make him go on.

"Do you read poetry a great deal?" she asked, and she thought if his
taste was mainly for poetry, it would simplify the difficulty of
choosing the books for her present.

"Well, I'm rather returning to it. I've been looking into Crabbe of
late, and I have found him full of a quaint charm."

"Crabbe? I never heard of him!" she owned as boldly as before, for if he
had been worth hearing of, she knew that she would have heard of him.
"Don't you like Kipling?"

"Yes, when he is not noisy. I think I prefer William Watson among your
very modern moderns."

"Why, is _he_ living yet? I thought he wrote ten or fifteen years ago!
You don't call _him_ modern! You like Stevenson, don't you? He's a great
stylist; everybody says he is, and so is George Meredith. You must like
_him_?"

"He's a great intellect, but a little of him goes almost as long a way
as a little of Browning. I think I prefer Henry James."

"Oh yes, he's just coming up. He's the one that has distinction. But the
people who write _like_ him are a great deal more popular. They have all
his distinction, and they don't tax your mind so much. But don't