"Oh yes, we had them at school, when we were reading Henry Esmond; they all came into that. And I remember, now: Colonel Esmond wrote a number of the Spectator for a surprise to Beatrix; but I thought it was all a make-up."
"And you don't know about Sir Roger de Coverley?"
"Of course I do! It's what the English call the Virginia Reel. But why do you ask? I thought we were talking about your reading. I don't see how you could get an old file of a daily newspaper, but if it amuses you! Is it so amusing?"
"It's charming, but after one has read it as often as I have one begins to know it a little too well."
"Yes; and what else have you been reading?"
"Well, Leigh Hunt a little lately. He continues the old essayist tradition, and he is gently delightful."
"Never heard of him!" the girl frankly declared.
"He was a poet, too, and he wrote the Story of Rimini—about Paolo and Francesca, you know."
"Oh, there you're away off, grandfather! Mr. Philips wrote about them; and that horrid D'Annunzio. Why, Duse gave D'Annunzio's play last winter! What are you thinking of?"
"Perhaps I am wandering a little," the grandfather meekly submitted, and the girl had to make him go on.