"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 Emerson, and Lowell.'

"'And Shakespere,' she added. 'Don't you like Shakespere's plays?... We
had ever so much about Shakespere. Weren't you perfectly astonished when
you found out how many other plays there were of his? I always thought
there was nothing but "Hamlet," and "Romeo and Juliet," and "Macbeth,"
and "Richard III.," and "King Lear," and that one that Robson and Crane
have--oh, yes, "Comedy of Errors!"'"

So you see how ridiculous this young girl, by the betrayal of such
ignorance, made herself in conversation with a cultured young gentleman
whose good opinion she was most anxious to win. And yet, to talk too