“What are you doing among my books?” he asked, with severity.
“I don’t wonder you are astonished to see any one reading them,” said she, looking down saucily, with her dull discovery open in her hand.
“You think I don’t know how to read, I believe.”
“I am sure you couldn’t read this, at any rate. It is called ‘Extracts from the Sermons of the Reverend Thomas Dobbs, late Vicar of Garstone,’ and it is dated 1844.”
“Why, no; I indulge in that only on very special occasions! I don’t think much of your literary taste.”
“And I don’t think much of your library. I can’t find anything better.”
“Oh, nonsense! Here’s the ‘Life of Knox,’ and the ‘Works of Josephus,’ and ‘Fox’s Martyrs.’ I remember my mother cured us of the vice of reading when we were youngsters by letting us have these entertaining works to read on Sundays. Have you ever noticed, Annie, that careless and irreligious parents are always very particular about what their children read on Sunday?”
“But I am too old to be cured in that simple manner. Find me something nicer, please.”
“Come down, then, and sit by the fire, and I’ll find you ‘Clarissa Harlowe,’ or something else as light and frivolous.”
She came down and sat in the chair he drew on to the hearth-rug, while he brought one book after another, and, after dusting it carefully, placed it on her lap. Sometimes he would kneel by her side for a few minutes to look over one with her, and listen to her remarks upon it; and they got on so well together over this pastime that by the time the light of the December afternoon had faded, and the red glow of the fire was all they had to see by, the awkward barrier between them was quite broken down, and a friendly intercourse between them begun, which was to Annie merely a new pleasure, but which brought to the young baronet a delight which he knew to be full of peril.