‘How the books stick together! I wonder when they were opened last!’
‘Never, I suspect,’ said he. ‘I do not imagine the Mortons were much disposed to read.’
‘Well, they have left us a delightful store! What’s this? Smollett’s Don Quixote. I always wanted to know about that. Is it not something about giants and windmills? Have you read it?’
‘I once read an odd volume. He was half mad, and too good for this world, and thought he was living in a romance. I will read you some bits. You would not like it all.’
‘Oh, I do hope you will have time to read to me! Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. All these volumes! They are quite damp. You have read it?’
‘Yes, and I wish I could remember all those Emperors. I must put aside this letter for Hailes—it is a man applying for a house.’
‘How strange it sounds! Look, here is such an immense Shakespeare! Oh! full of engravings,’ as she fell upon Boydell’s Shakespeare—another name reverenced, though she only knew a few selected plays, prepared for elocution exercises.
Her husband, having had access to the Institute Library, and spent many evenings over books, was better read than she, whose knowledge went no farther than that of the highest class, but who knew all very accurately that she did know, and was intelligent enough to find in those shelves a delightful promise of pasture. He was by this time sighing over requests for subscriptions.
‘Such numbers! Such good purposes! But how can I give?’
‘Cannot you give at least a guinea?’ asked Mary, after hearing some.