called a receptive condition--that is, into a state to receive readily, and
entertain with favor, the thoughts which James was prepared to present.

James then went on to draw a very agreeable picture of Walter's leaving
home and going to college, with many details calculated to be pleasing
to his cousin's fancy, and came at length to his room, and to the
circumstances under which he would take possession of it. Then he told
him of the condition in which different scholars kept their respective
rooms--how some were always in disorder, and every thing in them
topsy-turvy, so that they had no pleasant or home-like aspect at all; while
in others every thing was well arranged, and kept continually in that
condition, so as to give the whole room, to every one who entered it, a
very charming appearance.

"The books on their shelves were all properly arranged," he said, "all
standing up in order--those of a like size together. Jump down, Ann, and go
to your shelves, and arrange the books on the middle shelf in that way, to
show him what I mean."

Ann jumped down, and ran with great alacrity to arrange the books according
to the directions. When she had arranged one shelf, she was proceeding to
do the same with the next, but James said she need not do any more then.
She could arrange the others, if she pleased, at another time, he said.
"But come back now," he added, "and hear the rest of the advice."

"I advise you to keep your book-shelves in nice order at college," he
continued; "and so with your apparatus and your cabinet. For at college,
you see, you will perhaps have articles of philosophical apparatus, and a
cabinet of specimens, instead of playthings. I advise you, if you should
have such things, to keep them all nicely arranged upon their shelves."