"Miss Margery is quite well, thank you," replied the maid, "and as much of a chatterbox as ever. I never knew such a child for asking you questions and saying queer things. There's no knowing how to answer her."
"Did she grieve much for her father?" asked Michael.
"Well, yes, she cried a great deal. She was fond of her father, was Miss Margery. And it upset her to see her mother crying. But she got over it sooner than you would think. Children quickly forget their troubles. If you could have seen her and her little brother playing together on the day their father was buried, you'd have been surprised. But, there, it wasn't to be expected they could miss their father, for they saw so little of him. He was always shut up in his study with his books. A regular bookworm he was. You couldn't call him nothing else."
Michael made no reply; but he wondered whether, if he had been the father of a sweet little girl like Margery, he would have been content to live shut up with his books all day.
"Then I may tell Mrs. Lavers that you will come to-morrow morning at ten o'clock?" said the maid as she turned to go.
Michael assented. He was not surprised that Mrs. Lavers should send for him. It frequently happened that his attendance was requested at houses where there had been a recent bereavement, necessitating considerable changes. The professor's widow doubtless wished to dispose of some or all of her husband's books.
Michael was not mistaken. On his arrival at the house he was at once ushered into the late professor's library, and whilst he waited there, he feasted his eyes on the contents of the ample bookshelves, which were fully and richly stocked. He had time to form a good estimate of the value of the books ere Mrs. Lavers came into the room.
The professor's widow was a delicate, graceful woman of about thirty-five years of age. Her face was pale, and it had a very careworn, sorrowful expression; but it still bore the traces of past beauty, and the fair, rippling hair which showed beneath her widow's cap, and her soft blue eyes, reminded Michael of little Margery. As she addressed him, Michael knew instinctively that he had to deal with a true lady in the highest sense of the term. And she, glancing at him, was struck with his air of respectability, and believed that she might trust in his integrity.
"I sent for you, Mr. Betts," she said, "because I am obliged to part with my husband's books. I have to move into a very small house, into which I cannot take them. And indeed for other reasons I feel it my duty to sell them. I have been advised to show them to you; I have been told that I may trust you to give me a fair price for them."
"I can give you as good a price for them as any one in the trade, madam," replied Michael promptly. "Though I say it myself, it's true that I understand the second-hand book market as well as any one can. Do I understand that you wish to part with all the books in this room?"