My Shelley is
gone. My 'Rousseau's Confessions' is also gone." And Cooper smiled at me
beatifically.
That was Cooper. But Mrs. Harrington that night saw things in quite a
different light. She grumbled and sniffed, and finally grew vehement. I
am not a saint like Cooper, but here and there my shelves, too, show the
visitations of friends. "Not a single complete set," wailed Mrs.
Harrington, "everything lugged away by people who should be taught to
know better. Browning, volumes I, II, V, and VII--four volumes gone.
Middlemarch, volume II, first volume gone. Morley's Gladstone, volumes I
and III, one volume gone. I wager you don't even know who has the second
volume of your Gladstone. Do you, now?"
To tell the truth, I did not for the moment know. And as I hesitated she
thrust one of the volumes in triumph at me and mechanically I opened the
book and saw a red serpent about a golden staff. "I remember now," I
told Mrs. Harrington. "I'll get the second volume the next time I call
on Cooper."
***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PATIENT OBSERVER***
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