"You go, Phillida; I'll follow you in a minute," said Mrs. Gouverneur.
"The book is of the earliest impression known," went on Philip with enthusiasm as he led the way up-stairs followed by his cousin, "and is perfect throughout except that one page has been mended."
"Mended?" queried Phillida, as she followed Philip into his library and sitting room. "Do they darn old books as they do old stockings?"
"Oh, yes! it is a regular trade to patch books."
Saying this, Philip turned up the gas, and then unlocked a glass case which held what he called his "nuggets," and took down the two precious volumes of the bravest and boastfullest of all the Smiths, laying them tenderly on a table under the chandelier. Turning the leaves, he directed Phillida's attention to one that seemed to have the slightest discoloration of one corner; rather the corner seemed just perceptibly less time-stained than the rest of the leaf.
"There," he said; "the most skillful mender in London did that."
"Did what?" said Phillida.
"Put on that corner. Isn't it a work of art?"
"I don't see that anything has been done there," said Phillida. "The corner is ever so little paler than the rest, maybe."
"That is the new piece. The mender selected a piece of hand-made paper of similar texture to the old, and stained the new piece as nearly to the tint of the old leaf as possible. Then he beveled the edge of the leaf, and made a reverse bevel on the piece, and joined them with exquisite skill and pains."