'

'Only tell me,' said Amy, 'how you could wish to live in the civil
wars?'

'O, because they would be so entertaining.'

'There's Paddy, genuine Paddy at last!' exclaimed Charles. 'Depend upon
it, the conventional young lady won't do, Eva.'

After much more discussion, and one or two more papers, came Guy's--the
last. 'Heather--Truth--King Charles--Sir Galahad--the present time.'

'Sir how much? exclaimed Charles.

'Don't you know him?' said Guy. 'Sir Galahad--the Knight of the Siege
Perilous--who won the Saint Greal.'

'What language is that?' said Charles.

'What! Don't you know the Morte d'Arthur! I thought every one did! Don't
you, Philip!'

'I once looked into it. It is very curious, in classical English; but it
is a book no one could read through.'

'Oh!' cried Guy, indignantly; then, 'but you only looked into it. If you
had lived with its two fat volumes, you could not help delighting in it.
It was my boating-book for at least three summers.'

'That accounts for it,' said Philip; 'a book so studied in boyhood
acquires a charm apart from its actual merits.'

'But it has actual merits. The depth, the mystery, the allegory--the
beautiful characters of some of the knights.'

'You look through the medium of your imagination,' said Philip; but
you must pardon others for seeing a great sameness of character and
adventure, and for disapproving of the strange mixture of religion and
romance.'

'You've never read it,' said Guy, striving to speak patiently.

'A cursory view is sufficient to show whether a book will repay the time
spent in reading it.'

'A cursory view enable one to judge better than making it your study?
Eh, Philip?' said Charles.

'It is no paradox. The actual merits are better seen by an unprejudiced
stranger than by an old friend who lends them graces of his own
devising.'

Charles laughed: Guy pushed back his chair, and went to look out at the
window. Perhaps Philip enjoyed thus chafing his temper; for after all he
had said to Laura, it was satisfactory to see his opinion justified, so
that he might not feel himself unfair. It relieved his uneasiness lest
his understanding with Laura should be observed. It had been in great
peril that evening, for as the girls went up to bed, Eveleen gaily said,
'Why, Laura, have you quarrelled with Captain Morville?'

'How can you say such things, Eva? Good night.' And Laura escaped into
her own room.

'What's the meaning of it, Amy?' pursu