“I can think of but one, Anne.”
“Oh, that is not one book. Why call it a book? It is the books of many men. Besides,—and this is terrible, Margaret,—I should like it to have been some very earthsome book,—I had to coin an adjective,—and I should like it to be like Ned’s friend—several.”
Margaret was critically silent. All this was in a way unpleasant to her, as the unusual is always to some people.
“I do not think,” said Lyndsay, “I know with what thoughts I should like to go hand in hand out of life. He was a fine, irritable old fellow. The critics won’t bother him now.”
“Who can tell? There may be archangelic critics, for all we know,” returned Anne. “However, perhaps one won’t mind it. You know what Hafiz says: ‘Happy are the dead, for they shall inherit the kingdom of indifference.’”
“Anne! Anne!” exclaimed Mrs. Lyndsay.
“Between papa’s Aurelius and Aunt Anne’s Persian poets,” said Rose, in haste to intervene, “the fairy-land of bewilderment is never far away.”
“I have the wicked worldliness, brother, to want to know how Mr. Clayborne left his money. Wasn’t he rich?”
“Yes. Wait a moment. He divided it, North says, between him—that is North, dear; I am glad of that; it will be in wise hands—and, really, that queer creature, St. Clair; but he was clever enough to put his share in trust.”
“I am very glad. That too delightful man!” exclaimed Rose. “Do you remember, Aunt Anne, the morning we spent with him at the Louvre? It was like walking about with some Greek sculptor. He seemed to be away in Athens while he talked.”