isn’t anywhere else!”

[37]“Shall I go there to find her?” asked Katy.

[37]

“Yes, Dear; go right in,” said Mrs. Corliss. “She will be glad to see you, I am sure.”

The door of the library was hospitably open. And Katy Summers, creeping up on tiptoe and peeping in softly, saw Mary with her thumb between the leaves of a book, kneeling before one of the bookshelves.

“I spy!” cried Katy. “What’s the old Bookworm up to now? Or perhaps I ought to say, considering your position, what’s she down to now?”

Mary jumped hastily to her feet. “Hello, Katy,” she said cordially. “I was just looking up something. Say, Katy, do you know what fun it is to look up quotations?”

“No,” said Katy, laughing. “I don’t see any fun in that. No more fun than looking up things in a dictionary.”

“Well, it is fun,” returned Mary. “I think I must be something like Aunt Nan. She loved quotations. Just look at this row of ‘Gems from the Poets.’ They’re full of quotations, Katy. I’m going to read them all, some time.”

“Goodness!” cried Katy. “What an idea! I think poetry is stupid stuff, sing-song and silly.”

“So Daddy thinks,” said Mary. “But it[38] isn’t, really. It is full of the most interesting stories and legends and beautiful things. This library bores Daddy almost to death, because all the books on these two walls are poetry. I believe that Aunt Nan had the works of every old poet who ever wrote in the English language. And see, these are the lives of the poets.” She pointed to the shelves in one corner.

[38]

“Huh!” grunted Katy. “Well, what of it?”

“Well, you see,” said Mary, looking up at Aunt Nan’s portrait, “the more I stay in this library, the more I like Aunt Nan’s books, and the more I want to please Aunt Nan herself. I like her, Katy.”

“I don’t!” said Katy, eyeing the portrait sideways. “You never had her for a neighbor, you see.”

“She never did anything to you, did she?” asked Mary.

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