And what did she learn?  Near the top of the large page the first word, “love.”  It ended a sentence and stood conspicuous, which was the reason it had caught the eye of the eager boy when he began to teach.  What did it mean?  What went before?  What after?  It was a long time before she asked herself these questions, for her understanding had not formed the habit of being curious.  Previously her eyes alone had sight, now her intellect commenced seeing.  What was the web of which this word was the woof, knitting together, underlying, now appearing, now hidden, but always there?  She turned the leaves and counted where it recurred again and again, like a bird repeating one sweet note, of which it never tires.  Then the larger type in the middle of each page drew her attention:  she read, As You Like It.  “What do I like?  This story is perhaps as I like it.  I wonder what it is about?  I don’t care now for pirates and robbers:  I liked them when he read to me, but not now.”  Her thoughts then wandered off to Danby, and she read no more that day.

However, Nellie had plenty of time before her, and when her thinking was ended she would return to her text.  I do not know how long a time it required for her to connect the sentence that followed the word “love;” but it became clear to her finally, just as a difficult puzzle will sometimes resolve itself as you are idly regarding it.  And this is what she saw:  “Love!  But it cannot be sounded:  my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the bay of Portugal.”  The phrase struck her as if it was her own, and for the first time in her life she blushed.  She did not know much about the bay of Portugal, it is true, but she understood the rest.  From that time forth the book possessed a strange interest for her.  Much that she did not comprehend she passed by.  Often for several days she would not find a passage that pleased her, but when such a one was discovered her slow perusal of it and long dwelling on it gave a beauty and power to the sentiment that more expert students might have lost.  I cannot describe the almost feverish effect upon her of that poetical quartette beginning with—­

  Good shepherd, tell this youth what ’tis to love.

How she hung over it, smiled at it, brightening into delight at the echo of her own feelings!  In the raillery of Rosalind her heart found words to speak; and her sense and wit were awakened by the sarcasm of the same character.  “Pray you, no more of this:  ’tis like the howling of Irish wolves against the moon,” came like a healthy tonic after a week of ecstasy spent over the preceding lines.