“And, besides, mamma,” said Letty, from the window, “here is Miss Bethia coming up the street. And, mamma, dear, shouldn’t you go and lie down now, and I could tell her that you have a headache, and that you ought not to be disturbed?”
But Mrs Inglis could hardly have accomplished that, even if she had tried at once, for almost before Violet had done speaking, Miss Bethia was upon them. Her greetings were brief and abrupt, as usual; and then she said:
“Well! There! I was in hopes to see this place once more before everything was pulled to pieces!” and she surveyed the disordered room with discontented eyes. “Been looking them over to see what you can leave behind or burn up, haven’t you? And you can’t make up your mind to part with one of them. I know pretty well how that is. The books ain’t disturbed yet, thank goodness! Are you going to take Parson Grantly’s offer, and let him have some of them?”
Mrs Inglis shook her head.
“Perhaps I ought,” said she. “And yet I cannot make up my mind to do it.”
“No! of course, not! Not to him, anyhow! Do you suppose he’d ever read them? No! He only wants them to set up on his shelf to look at. If they’ve got to go, let them go to some one that’ll get the good of them, for goodness sake! Well! There! I believe I’m getting profane about it!” said Miss Bethia catching the look of astonishment on David’s face. “But what I want to say is, What in all the world should you want to go and break it up for? There ain’t many libraries like that in this part of the world.”
And, indeed, there was not. The only point at which Mr Inglis had painfully felt his poverty, was his library. He was a lover of books, and had the desire, which is like a fire in the bones of the earnest student, to get possession of the best books of the time as they came from the press. All his economy in other things had reference to this. Any overplus at the year’s end, any unexpected addition to their means, sooner or later found its way into the booksellers’ hands. But neither overplus nor unexpected addition were of frequent occurrence in the family history of the Inglises; and from among the best of the booksellers’ treasures only the very best found their way to the minister’s study except as transitory visitors. Still, in the course of years, a good many of these had been gathered, and he had, besides, inherited a valuable library, as far as it went, both in theology and in general literature; and once or twice, in the course of his life, it had been his happy fortune to have to thank some good rich man for a gift of books better than gold. So Miss Bethia was right in saying that there were in the country few libraries like the one on which she stood gazing with regretful admiration.
“I can’t make it seem right to do it,” continued she gravely. “Just think of the book he thought so much of lying round on common folks’ shelves and tables? Why! he used to touch the very outsides of them as if they felt good to his hands.”
“I remember. I have seen him,” said David.
“And so have I,” said Violet.