e process of suggestion unfathomable
to Janet, and by eliminating, not too deprecatingly, Mrs. Maturin's
impatient proposals, brought her to a point where she blurted out the
solution herself.

"Oriental poppies! How stupid of me not to think of them!"

"How stupid of me!" Insall echoed--and Janet, bending over her weeding,
made sure they had been in his mind all the while.

Augusta Maturin's chief extravagance was books; she could not bear to
await her turn at the library, and if she liked a book she wished to own
it. Subscribing to several reviews, three English and one American,
she scanned them eagerly every week and sent in orders to her Boston
bookseller. As a consequence the carved walnut racks on her library
table were constantly being strained. A good book, she declared, ought
to be read aloud, and discussed even during its perusal. And thus Janet,
after an elementary and decidedly unique introduction to worth-while
literature in the hospital, was suddenly plunged into the vortex of
modern thought. The dictum Insall quoted, that modern culture depended
largely upon what one had not read, was applied to her; a child of the
new environment fallen into skilful hands, she was spared the boredom
of wading through the so-called classics which, though useful as
milestones, as landmarks for future reference, are largely mere
reminders of an absolute universe now vanished. The arrival of a novel,
play, or treatise by one of that small but growing nucleus of twentieth
century seers was an event, and often a volume begun in the afternoon
was taken up again after supper. While Mrs. Maturin sat sewing on the
other side of the lamp, Janet had her turn at reading. From the first
she had been quick to note Mrs. Maturin's inflections, and the relics of
a high-school manner were rapidly eliminated. The essence of latter-day
realism and pragmatism, its courageous determination to tear away a veil
of which she had always been dimly aware, to look the facts of human
nature in the face, refreshed her: an increasing portion of it she
understood; and she was constantly under the spell of the excitement
that partially grasps, that hovers on the verge of inspiring
discoveries. This excitement, whenever Insall chanced to be present,
was intensified, as she sat a silent but often quivering listener to
his amusing and pungent comments on these new ideas. His method of
discussion never failed to illuminate and delight her, and often, when