"But I cannot see what business she has in the library," interrupted Mrs. Chandos, in a quick complaining tone. "A stranger has no right to the run of the house. I think you must be all out of your minds to have her here at all."
"In regard to the library, Ethel, I told her——"
They were the last words that reached me. Mrs. Chandos, ever changeable, was walking rapidly to the house again. Presently Mr. Chandos came down the broad walk, saw me, and approached.
"Are you fond of Shakespeare's works?" he asked, when he knew what I was reading.
"I have never read them, sir."
"Never read them!" he cried, in surprise. "You cannot mean that, Miss Hereford."
"But, sir, I have always been at school. And schoolgirls have no opportunity of obtaining such works. At my English school, Miss Fenton's, there were some volumes of Shakespeare in the governess's private parlour; but I never saw anything of them but their backs."
"Have you never read Byron?"
"Oh no."
"Nor any novels?"