Hildegardes Neighbors | Page 8

furniture was plain, and showed marks of hard usage; but
there were plenty of pictures, and the right kind of pictures, as
Hildegarde said to herself, with satisfaction; and there were
books,--books everywhere. In the wide, sunny sitting- room, into which
they were ushered by a pleasant-faced maid, low bookcases ran all
round the walls, and were not only filled, but heaped with books, the
volumes lying in piles along the top. The centre-table was a
magazine-stand, where Saint Nicholas and The Century, The Forum
and The Scientific American jostled each other in friendly rivalry. Mrs.
Merryweather sat in a low chair, with her lap full of books, and had
some difficulty in rising to receive her visitors. Her hearty welcome
assured them that they had not come a day too soon, as Mrs. Grahame
feared.

"My dear lady, no! I am charmed to see you. Bell has had such pleasure
in making friends with your daughter. Miss Grahame, I am delighted to
see you!" and Mrs. Merryweather held out what she thought was her
hand, but Hildegarde shook instead a small morocco volume, and was
well content when she saw that it was the "Golden Treasury."
"Bell has had such pleasure that I have been most anxious to share it,
and to know you and your daughter. Shall we be neighbourly? I am the
most unceremonious person in the world. Dear me! isn't there a chair
without books on it? Here, my dear Mrs. Grahame, sit down here, pray!
It is Dr. Johnson himself who makes room for you, and you must
excuse the great man for being slow in his movements."
With a merry smile, she offered the chair from which she had just
removed a huge folio dictionary. Hildegarde found an ottoman which
she could easily share with a volume of Punch, and Mrs. Merryweather
beamed at them over her spectacles, and said again that she was
delighted to see them.
"We are getting the books to rights gradually," she said, "but it takes
time, as you see. I have to do this myself, with Bell's help. She will be
down in a moment, my dear. We have established an overflow
bookcase in a cupboard upstairs, and she has just gone up with a load.
Ah! here she is. Bell, my dear, Mrs. and Miss Grahame. So kind of
them to come and see us!"
Bell shook hands warmly, her frank, pleasant face shining with
good-will. "I am so glad to see you!" she cried, sitting down by
Hildegarde on a pile of Punches. "I hoped you would come to-day,
even if the books are not in order yet. They are so dear, the books; they
are part of the family, and we want to be sure that they have places they
like. I suppose Punch ought by rights to go with people of his own
sort--if there is anybody!--but one wants him close at hand, don't you
think so? where one can take him up any time,--when it rains, or when
things bother one. Do you remember that Leech picture?" and they
babbled of Punch, their beloved, for ten minutes, and liked each other
better at every one of the ten.
"Bell, I want Mrs. and Miss Grahame to see our other children," said
Mrs. Merryweather, presently. "Where is Toots, and where are the
boys?"
"Toots is upstairs, poor lamb!" Bell replied. "When Mary came to tell

me of our visitors' arrival I was just putting away Sibbes's 'Soul's
Conflict,' and various other dreadful persons whom you would not let
me burn; so I dumped them in Toots's arms, and ran off and left her.
Being a ''bedient old soul,' she is probably standing just where I left her.
I will go--"
But at this moment Toots appeared,--a girl of fifteen, tall, shy and
blushing, and was introduced as "my daughter Gertrude." She
confessed, on interrogation, that she had dropped Sibbes's "Soul's
Conflict" out of the window, and was on her way to pick it up.
"Why didn't you drop it down the well?" asked her sister. "It is so dry, I
am sure a wetting would do it good!"
"Sit down, my dear!" said Mrs. Merryweather, comfortably. "One of
the boys is sure to be about, and will bring in the book. Sibbes IS a
little dry, Bell, but very sound writing, much sounder than a good deal
of the controversial writing of--bless me! what's that?"
Something resembling a human wheel had revolved swiftly past the
window, emitting unearthly cries.
Hildegarde blushed and hesitated. "I--I think it was your brother
Obadiah," she said to Bell.
The latter stared, open-eyed. "My brother Obadiah?" she repeated.
"How did you know--I beg your pardon! but why do you say
Obadiah?"
Hildegarde glanced at her mother, who was laughing openly. "You