We sat down presently upon the ancient hair-cloth sofa, with its knitted
afghan of many colors lying folded against a curved arm. There were the old, plain, priceless things—the carpet, the pictures, a pyramid of plants and flowers in front of the large window, the centre-table, with its album and reading-lamp, the secretary and the what-not filled with books that were a part of our history.
There were the ingredients of that receipt which, as it were, had made the intellectual cake of my boyhood: Josephus' History of the Jews (the flour, two heaping volumes); Ten Nights in a Bar-Room (the milk and water, one volume); Great Expectations, Bleak House), and David Copperfield (the sugar, three volumes); Pilgrim's Progress (the egg, one volume); Our Golden West (the spice, one volume); The Letters of Lord Chesterfield
(the frosting, one large table volume); Wrigglesworth's Day of Doom (the fire that did the baking).