"Oh yes; I remember now. That's what Gibbon was. Is it Gibbon or Gibbons?"
The young man decided the point with apparently superfluous delicacy. "Gibbon, I think."
"There used to be so many of them," said Irene gaily. "I used to get them mixed up with each other, and I couldn't tell them from the poets. Should you want to have poetry?"
"Yes; I suppose some edition of the English poets."
"We don't any of us like poetry. Do you like it?"
"I'm afraid I don't very much," Corey owned. "But, of course, there was a time when Tennyson was a great deal more to me than he is now."
"We had something about him at school too. I think I remember the name. I think we ought to have ALL the American poets."
"Well, not all. Five or six of the best: you want Longfellow and Bryant and Whittier and Holmes and Emerson and Lowell."
The girl listened attentively, as if making mental note of the names.
"And Shakespeare," she added. "Don't you like Shakespeare's plays?"