country. Now the queer rooms of Aunt Nan’s inhospitable old house were much less queer and much more homelike than they had ever been, and every corner radiated a merry hospitality.

[29]

But in the library nothing was changed. Mary would not let anything be moved from the place in which Aunt Nan had put it. For she had grown much attached to the old lady’s memory, since the finding of that little watch and chain.

You may be sure that Mary and John looked about the library carefully, to see if more of the same kind of nice joke might not be concealed somewhere. But they found nothing. It was not until nearly a week later, when there came a rainy Saturday, that they found time to look at the books themselves.

“Hello! Here’s a funny book to find in an old lady’s library!” cried John. “It’s our old friend ‘Master Skylark,’ one of the nicest books I know. But how do you suppose a children’s book came to be here, Mary? Daddy says for years Aunt Nan never allowed any children in the house.”

“I wonder!” said Mary. “And here’s another child’s book, right here on the desk. I[30] noticed it the first time I came in here, but I never opened it before. ‘Shakespeare the Boy’ is the name of it. I wonder if it is interesting? I like Shakespeare. We read his plays in school, and once I wrote a composition about him, you know.”

[30]

“Papa says Aunt Nan was crazy about Shakespeare,” said John.

“Why, here’s a note inside the cover of the book, addressed to me!” said Mary wonderingly.

“Let me look!” cried John, darting to her side. “Yes, it’s in that same handwriting, Mary. It’s a letter from Aunt Nan. Do hurry and open it!”

Mary held the envelope somewhat dubiously. It was not quite pleasant to be receiving letters from a person no longer living in this world. She glanced up at the portrait over the mantel as she cut the end of the envelope with Aunt Nan’s desk shears, and it seemed to her that the eyes under the prim gray curls gleamed at her knowingly. She almost expected to see the long forefinger of the portrait’s right hand point directly at her.

It was a brief letter that Aunt Nan had written; and it explained why she had left her library of precious books to this grandniece Mary whom she had never seen.

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