ans
by it.

"They seem to be having rather a long interview with the carpenter
to-day," said Irene, looking vaguely toward the ceiling. She turned
with polite ceremony to Corey. "I'm afraid you're letting them keep
you. You mustn't."

"Oh no. You're letting me stay," he returned.

She bridled and bit her lip for pleasure. "I presume they will be down
before a great while. Don't you like the smell of the wood and the
mortar? It's so fresh."

"Yes, it's delicious." He bent forward and picked up from the floor the
shaving with which they had been playing, and put it to his nose.
"It's like a flower. May I offer it to you?" he asked, as if it had
been one.

"Oh, thank you, thank you!" She took it from him and put it into her
belt, and then they both laughed once more.

Steps were heard descending. When the elder people reached the floor
where they were sitting, Corey rose and presently took his leave.

"What makes you so solemn, 'Rene?" asked Mrs. Lapham.

"Solemn?" echoed the girl. "I'm not a BIT solemn. What CAN you mean?"

Corey dined at home that evening, and as he sat looking across the
table at his father, he said, "I wonder what the average literature of
non-cultivated people is."

"Ah," said the elder, "I suspect the average is pretty low even with
cultivated people. You don't read a great many books yourself, Tom."

"No, I don't," the young man confessed. "I read more books when I was
with Stanton, last winter, than I had since I was a boy. But I read
them because I must--there was nothing else to do. It wasn't because I
was fond of reading. Still I think I read with some sense of
literature and the difference between authors. I don't suppose that
people generally do that; I have met people who had read books without
troubling themselves to find out even the author's name, much less
trying to decide upon his quality. I suppose that's the way the vast
majority of people read."

"Yes. If authors were not almost necessarily recluses, and ignorant of
the ignorance about them, I don't see how they could endure it. Of
course they are fated to be overwhelmed by oblivion at last, poor
fellows; but to see it weltering all round them while they are in the
very act of achieving immortality must be tremendously discouraging. I
don't suppose that we who have the habit of reading, and at least a
nodding acquaintance with literature, can imagine the bestial darkness
of the great mass of people--