"
Miss Merry still hesitated at the door. "May I ask you another
question, Mr. Kennedy--I hope I am not troublesome--I wonder if you
could suggest some books for us to read? I read a good deal to Mrs.
Graves, and I am afraid we get rather into a groove. We ought to
read some of the new books; we want to know what people are saying
and thinking--we don't want to get behind."
"Why, of course," said Howard, "I shall be delighted--but I am
afraid I am not likely to be of much use; I don't read as much as I
ought; but if you will tell me the sort of things you care about,
and what you have been reading, we will try to make out a list.
Won't you sit down and see what we can do?"
"Oh, I don't like to interrupt you," said Miss Merry. "But if you
would be so kind."
She sat down at the far end of the table, and Howard was dimly and
amusedly conscious that this tete-a-tete was of the nature of a
romantic adventure to the little lady. He was surprised, when they
came to talk, to find how much they appeared to have read of a
solid kind. He asked if they had any plan.
"No, indeed," said Miss Merry, "we just wander on; one thing
suggests another. Mrs. Graves likes LONG books; she says she likes
to get at a subject quietly--that there ought not to be too many
good things in books; she likes them slow and spacious."
"I am afraid one has to go back a good way for that!" said Howard.
"People can't afford now to know more than a manual of a couple of
hundred pages can tell them about a subject.
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