come to Carlisle and see him before you sailed for America as a boy?"

"I came to Carlisle. I may have seen him," Sir S. replied. "But say
nothing to Mrs. James about this conversation of ours. Some time,
perhaps, I may tell you why. If not, it's not worth remembering. And
now, I see she's got everything ready, and is waiting for us. So is
Vedder. The car's had a good drink of petrol, and we can be off--for a
sight of Carlyle's country. Will that bore you?" He looked at me almost
anxiously, as if something depended on my answer.

"Bore me? Oh, no: I shall love to go there," I assured him.

"Why? What do you know of Carlyle?"

"Not much," I had to confess, "But there were three books of his my
father had, which I've read. And there's a picture of him still in the
library."

"Which books? What picture?"

"'The French Revolution,' and 'Hero Worship,' and 'Sartor Resartus,' It
was that last one I read first. I took it off the shelf because it had
such a queer name. I wanted to find out what it meant. Don't you always
desperately want to find out what everything means? I do. But I suppose
you know everything by now. Well, I began to read without being so very
much interested. Then, suddenly, my mind seemed to wake up. It was a
wonderful feeling, just as if I stood near to a man who was playing
marvellous and startling music on the grandest organ ever made. And the
man who played could sing too. He sang in a voice sometimes harsh and
sometimes sweet. It seemed to me as I read the book that it was humorous
and sad, tender and stern at the same time. And till the very end I was
carried along on the wave of that organ music, which had in it always a
thrill of the divine. I never found any other book in the library that
made me feel exactly like that, except Shakespeare--and Grandma had all
the Shakespeare volumes carted off to the garret after she came in one
day when I was eleven, and found me reading 'Macbeth.' As for the
picture of Carlyle, it shows him, sitting in a chair, with a look on his
face of a sad man alone in a gray world."

"Whistler's portrait! You shall have all Carlyle's works and
Shakespeare's for your own. I'll give them to you," said Sir Somerled,
looking at me with an interested look, as if suddenly he liked me better
than he had before.

"Oh, you _are_ good, and I should love to have them," I said. "But now
there'll be my mother I shall have to ask permission of for everything.
I must do just what