ere's nothing to read. I hate Henty.
Always the same!"

"Well, I don't know anything about Henty, but there's Scott and Dickens
and----"

"I've read all them, mother," Michael interrupted petulantly.

"Well, why don't you ask Mrs. Rewins if you can borrow a book from her,
or I'll ask her, as you don't like going downstairs."

Mrs. Rewins brought up an armful of books which Michael examined
dismally one by one. However, after several gilded volumes of sermons
and sentimental Sunday-school prizes, he came across a tattered Newgate
Calendar and Roderick Random, both of which satisfied somewhat his new
craving for excitement. When he had finished these books, Mrs. Rewins
invited him to explore the cupboard in her warm kitchen, and here
Michael found Peregrine Pickle, Tom Jones, a volume of Bentley's
Miscellany containing the serial of Jack Sheppard by Harrison Ainsworth,
and What Every Woman of Forty-five ought to Know. The last work upset
him very much because he found it unintelligible in parts, and where it
was intelligible extremely alarming. An instinct of shamefulness made
him conceal this book in a drawer, but he became very anxious to find
out exactly how old his mother was. She, however, was more elusive on
this point than he had ever known her, and each elaborate trap failed,
even the innocent production of the table for ascertaining anybody's age
in a blue sixpenny Encyclopaedia: still, the Encyclopaedia was not without
its entertainment, and the table of diseases at the end was very
instructive. Among the books which Michael had mined down in Mrs.
Rewins' kitchen was The Ingoldsby Legends illustrated by Cruikshank.
These he found very enthralling, for though he was already acquainted
with The Jackdaw of Rheims, he now discovered many other poems still
more amusing, in many of which he came across with pleasure quotations
that he remembered to have heard used with much effect by Mr. Neech in
the Shell. The macabre and ghostly lays did not affect him so much as
the legends of the saints. These he read earnestly as he read Don
Quixote, discerning less of laughter than of Gothic adventure in their
fantastic pages, while his brain was fired by the heraldic pomps and
ecclesiastical glories.

About this time he happened to pay a visit to Christchurch Priory and by
the vaulted airs of that sanctuary he was greatly thrilled. The
gargoyles and brasses and effigies of dead knights called to him
mysteriously, but the