She shook her head.

“Have you no books?”

Again a negative shake.

“Just come along with me to the house.  I’ll see about this thing:  it must be stopped.”  And Danby rose and walked off with a determined air, while the girl, abashed and wondering, followed him.  When they arrived he plunged into the subject at once:  “Nurse Bridget, can you read?”

“An’ I raly don’t know, as I niver tried.”

“Fiddlesticks!  Of course Maurice is too blind, and very likely he never tried either.  Are there no books in the house?”

“An’ there is, then—­a whole room full of them, Master Danby.  We are not people of no larnin’ here, I can tell you.  There is big books, an’ little books, an’ some awful purty books, an’ some,” she added doubtfully, “as is not so purty.”

“You know a great deal about books!” said the boy sarcastically.

“An’ sure I do.  Haven’t I dusted them once ivery year since I came to this blessed place?  And tired enough they made me, too.  I ain’t likely to forgit them.”

“Well, let us see them.”

“Sure they’re locked.”

“Open them,” said the impatient boy.

“Do open them,” added Nellie timidly.

But it required much coaxing to accomplish their design, and after nurse did consent time was lost in looking for the keys, which were at last found under a china bowl in the cupboard.  Then the old woman led the way with much importance, opening door after door of the unused part of the house, until she came to the library.  It was a large, sober-looking room, with worn furniture and carpet, but rich in literature, and even art, for several fine pictures hung on the walls.  The ancestor from whom the house had descended must have been a learned man in his day, and a wise, for he had gathered about him treasures.  Danby shouted with delight, and Nellie’s eyes sparkled as she saw his pleasure.

“Open all the windows, nurse, please, and then leave us.  Why, Nellie, there is enough learning here to make you the most wonderful woman in the world!  Do you think you can get all these books into your head?” he asked mischievously, “because that is what I expect of you.  We will take a big one to begin with.”  The girl looked on while he, with mock ceremony, took down the largest volume within reach and laid it open on a reading-desk near.  “Now sit;” and he drew a chair for her before the open book, and another for himself.  “It is nice big print.  Do you see this word?” and he pointed to one of the first at the top of the page.

She nodded her head gravely.

“It is love:  say it.”

She repeated the word after him.

“Now find it all over the page whereever it occurs.”

With some mistakes she finally succeeded in recognizing the word again.

“Don’t you forget it.”

“Yes.”

“No, you must not.”

“I mean I won’t.”