“Hurry and look at the notes at the end of the book, Mary!” cried Katy, almost as much excited as her friend. “I did not know that poetry could be so interesting.”
Mary turned hastily to the back of the book. In the margin beside the printed notes were penned several words; references to other plays which evidently Aunt Nan wanted Mary to look up. “Bother!” said Mary in disappointment; “it’s only more quotations. I don’t want to stop for them.”
“You had better, Mary,” suggested Katy. “Perhaps if you do they will give you still another clue. See how queer Caliban looks!”
The cat was looking up in Mary’s face expectantly; and when she stooped to pat him, he opened his mouth and gave a strange, soundless “Miaou!”
“It looked as if he said ‘Yes!’ didn’t it, Katy?” said Mary. “Well, then, I suppose I had better do it. The first reference is to ‘As You Like It,’ Act II, Scene i.”
Mary went to the Shakespeare shelf, found the volume quickly, and looked up the proper place. “Yes!” she exclaimed, “there is a line underscored here, too,—‘Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.’ What a queer saying, Katy! What do you suppose it means? And this is the next quotation, in the ‘Sonnets’—Number CXXXV, Line 1. Here it is! ‘Whoever has her wish, you have your Will.’ Now, what connection can there be between those two things, Katy?”
“I don’t know!” said Katy, disappointed. “Is that all, are you sure? It doesn’t seem to mean anything, does it?”
“Wait a minute!” added Mary. “Here in the Sonnet-margin she has written, ‘Will S.—Yours. Look!’”
“Look where?” wondered Katy. “What Will S. have you, Mary?”
At the word “Look!” Mary had glanced up at the portrait of Aunt Nan, and it seemed to her as if the eyes in the picture were cast down on something below them. Mary’s own eyes followed the look, and fell on the bust of Shakespeare in the middle of the mantelshelf. “Does she mean—perhaps she does—that bust of Will Shakespeare?” said Mary. “It is mine now, of course. ‘Whoever has her wish’—‘Wears yet a precious jewel in his head’—‘Something rich and strange.’”