rossing interest; nevertheless with steady purpose and steady
progress. Then Mrs. Barclay received from New York a consignment of
beautiful drawings and engravings from the best old masters, and some
of the best of the new; and she found her hands becoming very full. To
look at these engravings was almost a passion with the two girls; but
not in the common way of picture-seeing. Lois wanted to understand
everything; and it was necessary, therefore, to go into wide fields of
knowledge, where the paths branched many ways, and to follow these
various tracks out, one after another. This could not be done all in
talking; and Lois plunged into a very sea of reading. Mrs. Barclay was
not obliged to restrain her, for the girl was thorough and methodical
in her ways of study, as of doing other things; however, she would
carry on two or three lines of reading at once. Mrs. Barclay wrote to
her unknown correspondent, "Send me 'Sismondi';" "send me Hallam's
'Middle Ages';" "send me 'Walks about Kome';" "send me 'Plutarch's
Lives';" "send me D'Aubigne's 'Reformation';" at last she wrote, "Send
me Ruskin's 'Modern Painters'." "I have the most enormous intellectual
appetite to feed that ever I had to do with in my life. And yet no
danger of an indigestion. Positively, Philip, my task is growing from
day to day delightful; it is only when I think of the end and aim of it
all that I get feverish and uneasy. At present we are going with 'a
full sail and a flowing sea'; a regular sweeping into knowledge, with a
smooth, easy, swift occupying and taking possession, which gives the
looker-on a stir of wondering admiration. Those engravings were a great
success; they opened for me, and at once, doors before which I might
have waited some time; and now, eyes are exploring eagerly the vast
realms those doors unclose, and hesitating only in which first to set
foot. You may send the 'Stones of Venice' too; I foresee that it will
be useful; and the 'Seven Lamps of Architecture.' I am catching my
breath, with the swiftness of the way we go on. It is astonishing, what
all clustered round a view of Milan Cathedral yesterday. By the way,
Philip,--no hurry,--but by and by a stereoscope would be a good thing
here. Let it be a little hand-glass, not a great instrument of
unvarying routine and magnificent sameness."

Books came by packages and packages. Such books! The eyes of the two
girls gloated over them, as they helped Mrs. Barclay unpack; the room
g