“Did Browning write that?” I asked, my eyes a little blurred with the quick tears which had sprung to them. “But I thought he was a stuffy old poet whom nobody could understand?”
“Many people think so,” answered Mr. Chester, with his kind smile; “but it is mostly because they have taken somebody else’s word for it and have never tried to understand, themselves. Suppose you try for yourself, sometime. You’ll find him a tonic—just such a tonic as you need.”
“I will,” I said, gratefully; and then, for the first time, I noticed that the two boys were no longer in the room. Mother noticed their absence, too, at the same moment.
“Why, where is Dick?” she asked.
“They’ve probably gone back to the library,” I suggested, leaping at once to the conclusion that they had found a new clue. “Shall I go after them?”
“Yes, dear—we must be going. Tell Dick it’s getting late.”
I ran up the stairs to the library door, eager to find out what it was they had discovered. But in the first moment, as I entered, I thought the room was empty. Then I heard the low murmur of excited voices from the deep window-seat. But at the sound of my footsteps, the murmur ceased abruptly.
“I SAW FROM THEIR FLUSHED FACES THAT THEY HAD, INDEED, MADE SOME DISCOVERY.”
“Have you found out something, Dick?” I cried, bursting in upon them. “Oh, tell me!”