But it was part of her duty, which was not over well-defined in the
house, to see that her young master's room was kept tidy and properly
dusted; and in attending to this it was unavoidable that she should come
upon indications of the way in which he spent his leisure hours. Never
dreaming, indeed, that a servant might recognize at a glance what his
father and mother did not care to know, Hector was never at any pains to
conceal, or even to lay aside the lines yet wet from his pen when he
left the room; and Annie could not help seeing them, or knowing what
they were. Like many another Scotch lassie, she was fonder of reading
than of anything else; and in her father's house she had had the free
use of what books were in it; nor is it, then, to be wondered at that
she was far more familiar with certain great books than was ever many an
Oxford man. Some never read what they have no desire to assimilate; and
some read what no expenditure of reading could ever make them able to
appropriate; but Annie read, understood, and re-read the "Paradise
Lost"; knew intimately "Comus" as well; delighted in "Lycidas," and had
some of Milton's sonnets by heart; while for the Hymn on the Nativity,
she knew every line, had studied every turn and phrase in it. It is
sometimes a great advantage not to have many books, and so never outgrow
the sense of mystery that hovers about even an open book-case; it was
with awe and reverence that Annie, looking around Hector's room, saw in
it, not daring to touch them, books she had heard of, but never
seen--among others a Shakspere in one thick volume lay open on his
table; nor is it, then, surprising that, when putting his papers
straight, she could not help seeing from the different lengths of the
lines upon them that they were verse. She trembled and glowed at the
very sight of them, for she had in herself the instinct of sacred
numbers, and in her soul felt a vague hunger after what might be
contained in those loose papers--into which she did not even peep,