"Reads mostly, and makes my baskets; there be few can ekal me at rush or willow. And there's good money in baskets!"
"What books have you read?"
"Not so many as I'd like."
"Tell me some of them."
"Well there's the 'Castle of Otranto' and Virgil and 'Peregrine
Pickle' and the Psalms, and 'Tom Jones' and John Milton's Poems,
'Tristram Shandy.' Dryden, Plutarch's lives—oh, and a lot beside—"
"And which do you like best?"
For answer she reached the six volumes from amongst her pots and pans and these I found to be: Shakespeare, 'Tristram Shandy,' the Bible, Anson's Voyages and 'Robinson Crusoe.'
"You have shown most excellent judgment and a most catholic taste!" said I.
"You loves books, too!" she nodded. "I sees that by the way you handles 'em. And I keeps these six here because I can read them over and over and never tires, though there's a lot I don't understand."
"That," said I, looking upon my companion with new vision, "that is because each of these books shrines some part of undying Truth which can never weary and never die. I think," said I, setting the books back in their accustomed place, "I think I will call you Diana, if I may?"