"Well, it's like going to funerals every day. It's all country all round about, with trees and flowers and birds. Why, I've helped to make hay in the autumn."
Esther drew a sigh of ecstasy. "It's like a book," she said.
"Books!" he said. "We've got hundreds and hundreds, a whole library—Dickens, Mayne Reid, George Eliot, Captain Marryat, Thackeray—I've read them all."
"Oh, Benjy!" said Esther, clasping her hands in admiration, both of the library and her brother. "I wish I were you."
"Well, you could be me easily enough."
"How?" said Esther, eagerly.
"Why, we have a girls' department, too. You're an orphan as much as me.
You get father to enter you as a candidate."
"Oh, how could I, Benjy?" said Esther, her face falling. "What would become of Solomon and Ikey and little Sarah?"
"They've got a father, haven't they? and a grandmother?"
"Father can't do washing and cooking, you silly boy! And grandmother's too old."