she found dull. For Robinson Crusoe she had the intense human
sympathy that all lonely people feel for that masterpiece. The
Imitation pleased her by what she would have called its common
sense. Such a passage, for example: "Oftentimes something lurketh
within, or else occurreth from without, which draweth us after it.
Many secretly seek themselves in what they do, and know it not."

"They seem also to live in good peace of mind, when things are done
according to their will and opinion; but if things happen otherwise
than they desire, they are straightway moved and much vexed."

And behind this common sense she did seem to be directly in touch
with some one whom she might find had she more time and friends to
advise her. She was conscious in her lonely hours, that nothing gave
her such a feeling of company as did this little battered red book,
and she felt that that friendliness might one day advance to some
greater intimacy. About these things she was intensely reserved and
she spoke of them to no human being.

Even for the books for whose contents she did not care she had a
kindly feeling. So often had they looked down upon her when she sat
there exasperated, angry at her own tears, rebellious, after some
scene with her father. No other place but this room had seen these
old agonies of hers. She would be sorry after all to leave it.

There were not many things beside the books. Two bowls of blue
Glebeshire pottery, cheap things but precious, a box plastered with
coloured shells, an amber bead necklace, a blue leather writing-
case, a photograph of her father as a young clergyman with a beard
and whiskers, a faded daguerreotype of her mother, last, but by no