from his precious volumes, demanded rather that he should always be
among them. But the stock that he laid in, turned out to comprise
rather such works as a gentleman of learning would choose for company,
than such as the people of Philadelphia preferred to read.
Furthermore, when some would-be purchaser appeared, it often happened
that the book he offered to buy was one for which the erudite dealer
had acquired so strong an affection that he would not let it change
owners. Nor did his wife much endeavour to turn him from this
untradesmanlike course. Besides being a gentle and affectionate woman,
she had that admiration for learning which, like excessive warmth of
heart and certain other traits, I have observed to be common between
the Scotch (she was of Edinburgh, as I have said) and the best of the
Americans.

Such was Philip's father, and when he died of some trouble of the
heart, there was nothing for his widow to do but continue the
business. She did this with more success than the doctor had had,
though many a time it smote her heart to sell some book of those that
her husband had loved, and to the backs of which she had become
attached for his sake and through years of acquaintance. But the
necessities of her little boy and herself cried out, and so did the
debt her husband had accumulated as tangible result of his business
career. By providing books of a less scholarly, more popular
character, such as novels, sermons, plays, comic ballads, religious
poems, and the like; as well as by working with her needle, and
sometimes copying legal and other documents, Mrs. Winwood managed to
keep the kettle boiling. And in the bookselling and the copying, she
soon came to have the aid of Philip.

The boy, too, loved books passionately, finding in them consolation