questions; but, although she did not perceive it, it soon became
apparent to her more observant daughter that the visitors, having come
out to make a call of ceremony, preferred to talk on subjects more
remote from their daily drudgery, on subjects which they apparently
considered more elegant and becoming. Unable to check the flow of her
mother's talk, Sophia could only draw her chair cosily near to Miss
Bennett and strike into a separate conversation, hoping for, and
expecting, mental refreshment.

"I suppose there are no good lending libraries in any of the towns near
here," she began. "How do you get new books or magazines?"

Miss Bennett had a bright, cordial manner. She explained that she
thought there was a circulating library in every town. When she was
visiting in Quebec her friends had got a novel for her at two cents a
day. And then she said Principal Trenholme bought a good many books, and
he had once told her mother that he would lend them any they chose, but
they had never had time to go and look over them. "It has," she added,
"been such an advantage to Chellaston to have a gentleman so clever as
he at the college."

"Has it?" said Sophia, willing to hear more. "Is he very clever?"

"Oh," cried the other, "from Oxford, you know;" and she said it in much
the tone she might have said "from heaven."

"Is it long," asked Sophia, "since you have been in England?"

Miss Bennett said she had never been "home," but she longed, above all
things, to go.