He had not commenced the regular reading, but was dipping into bits here and there, while he waited for her to "settle," as he called the bringing of her small work-basket, and the searching out her work. Now, although she was "settled," and looking apparently thoughtful enough for the saddest scenes from the great writer, he still continued his glancings from page to page, breaking out presently with—
"Louise, do you remember this?"
"'I never did repent for doing good,
Nor shall not now; for in companions
That do converse and waste the time together,
Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love,
There must be needs a like proportion
Of lineaments, of manners, and of spirit.'"
"Do you remember what a suggestive shrug of her shoulders Estelle gave over the line—"
"'That do converse and waste the time together'?"
"I suspect she thought it fitted us precisely."
"Yes," Louise said, smiling in a most preoccupied way. That her thoughts were not all on Shakespeare, nor even on that fairer object, Estelle, she presently evinced by a question.
"Lewis, how far did Dorothy get in her studies?"
"Dorothy?" repeated her husband, looking up in surprise, and with difficulty coming back from Shakespeare; "I don't know, I am sure. As far, I remember hearing, as the teachers in our district school could take her. That is not saying much, to be sure; though, by the way, I hear they have an exceptionally good one this winter. Poor Dorothy didn't have half a chance; I tried to manage it, but I couldn't. Hear this, Louise,—"
"'How he glistens through my rust!
And how his piety does my deeds make the blacker!'"