Accustomed all her life to having few books about her, with no opportunity for individual choice, she made mistakes at first amid the plethora of volumes that the city offered. It had been disappointing, for instance, to reach home in the evening to learn that The Four Georges was not about four little boys or to find out that Sesame and Lilie had nothing to do with flowers. But part of the stack was open, and she soon found what she desired and drenched herself in the world of romance. Under the guidance of the librarian she read two novels of Dickens, and carried home and returned with suspicious swiftness one each of Scott and Thackeray; under her own guidance she became intimate with the heroines of those best sellers that a conscientious library board permitted upon the open shelves. Rather to her relief the librarian this evening was very busy and she went at once to the open stack.
It was with a guilty feeling that she habitually walked past the rows of history and travel. Ellen would have stopped here, she knew, and have carried home volumes telling of Europe and China and India and other lands unknown to Hertha even by name. Tom in her place would have asked for Livingstone's Travels in Africa, a book he had always wanted to own. She hoped they would surely have it in the school where he was reading or studying that night. Well, Ellen was industrious, and Tom liked to stop and think; but she, Hertha, never had cared for heavy reading—except poetry, and poetry belonged under the pines or by the river, not in noisy New York. So excusing herself, she reached the jaunty, attractively bound fiction and joined the large group of borrowers who were intent on securing a thrilling story for the morrow.
"Excuse me, but do you know anything about these books?"
She turned to see a young man at her elbow. He was tall, not in the least good-looking, with a long, thin face, a small mouth and a sharp nose. His eyes, however, were attractive—deep blue with long lashes like a child's. He was dressed in cheap, conspicuously patterned clothes, and his gay necktie bore a large scarfpin. She hesitated to answer, and yet there was a tone of entreaty in his voice that gave her confidence. She felt sure that he was from the country and was floundering about amid this multitude of volumes as she had floundered a few weeks ago. He should, of course, consult the official-looking librarian seated at her desk whose business it was to instruct newcomers, but the newcomer is the one who instinctively avoids the official class. Glancing down she answered shyly, "Very little."
They were between two stacks, and looking along the line of volumes, Hertha saw a familiar title and took down The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
"Have you read this?" she asked.
"No, ma'am," was the answer.
She smiled at the "ma'am" for it reminded her of home. "I feel like you'll enjoy it," she ventured.
"There," the young man cried, so loudly that a number of borrowers turned to look at them both. "I knew the minute I set eyes on you that you were from the South!"
Hertha was very much annoyed. This forward youth was making her conspicuous. Leaving him she went quickly to the reading-room, and seating herself at a table took up a magazine. In a few minutes, however, she saw him at her side.