If Linnet had been as excited as Marjorie was, at that moment, she would have given a bound into the grass and danced all around. But Marjorie only sat still trembling with a flush in eyes and cheeks.
"I think I'll keep a list of the books I read," decided Marjorie after a quiet moment.
"That's a good plan. I'll show you a list I made in my girlhood, some day. But you mustn't read as many as an Englishman read,—Thomas Henry Buckle,—his library comprised twenty-two thousand."
"He didn't read them all," cried Linnet.
"He read parts of all, and some attentively, I dare say. He was a rapid reader and had the rare faculty of being able to seize on what he needed to use. He often read three volumes a day. But I don't advise you to copy him. I want you to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. He could absorb, but, we'll take it for granted that you must plod on steadily, step by step. He read through Johnson's Dictionary to enlarge his vocabulary."
"Vocabulary!" repeated Linnet.
"His stock of words," exclaimed Marjorie. "Miss Prudence!" with a new energy in her voice, "I'm going to read Webster through."
"Well," smiled Miss Prudence.
"Don't you believe I can?"
"Oh, yes."