'Better without them,' she replies promptly.
'I wonder, mother, what it is about the man that so infatuates the
public?'
'He takes no hold of me,' she insists. 'I would a hantle rather
read your books.'
I offer obligingly to bring one of them to her, and now she looks
at me suspiciously. 'You surely believe I like yours best,' she
says with instant anxiety, and I soothe her by assurances, and
retire advising her to read on, just to see if she can find out how
he misleads the public. 'Oh, I may take a look at it again by-and-
by,' she says indifferently, but nevertheless the probability is
that as the door shuts the book opens, as if by some mechanical
contrivance. I remember how she read 'Treasure Island,' holding it
close to the ribs of the fire (because she could not spare a moment
to rise and light the gas), and how, when bed-time came, and we
coaxed, remonstrated, scolded, she said quite fiercely, clinging to
the book, 'I dinna lay my head on a pillow this night till I see
how that laddie got out of the barrel.'
After this, I think, he was as bewitching as the laddie in the
barrel to her - Was he not always a laddie in the barrel himself,
climbing in for apples while we all stood around, like gamins,
waiting for a bite? He was the spirit of boyhood tugging at the
skirts of this old world of ours and compelling it to come back and
play.
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