And now it was that Miss Bentley discovered how impossible it is to forget when you wish to.  You may assist a treacherous memory with a memorandum, but no corresponding resource offers when you wish to forget.  You may succeed in diverting your thoughts for a time, but sooner or later, ten to one, in the most illogical manner, the very thing you seek to avoid forces itself upon your attention.  What could have seemed further away from the Candy Man than ancient Hindoo Philosophy?  And into this she plunged to drown her annoyance, and incidentally help a fellow member of the Tuesday Club.  Margaret Elizabeth was ever ready to fill in a breach, and when Miss Allen came to her in despair, having been positively forbidden to use her eyes, she obligingly agreed to help her.

The subject grew, as all subjects have a way of doing.  It was a providential ordering, Uncle Bob remarked, enabling the writers of papers to take refuge from criticism in the impressive statement that it is impossible to treat of the matter adequately in so short a space.  Margaret Elizabeth laughed, and crossed out a paragraph at the bottom of her first page, and then set out for the Public Library.

Seated in the Reference Room, with more books than she could read in a year on the table before her, behold Miss Bentley presently inconsolable for lack of a certain authority she chanced to remember in the college library at home.  The whole force of the Reference Room mourned with her, for Margaret Elizabeth in the part of earnest student was no less captivating than in her other roles.

“I know where there is a copy,” said the youngest and wisest of the force, “but it won’t do you any good.  Mr. Knight, the man the children call the Miser, has one.”

“I’ll go and ask him to let me see it.  I’d like to know a real live miser.”  Margaret Elizabeth closed the book she had in hand and rose.

The force gasped at her temerity.  They had heard he was a horrid old man; but the youngest observed wisely that probably he wouldn’t bite.

Miss Bentley, however, having recently developed a bump of discretion, did first consult Dr. Prue in the matter, who responded, “Why certainly, I see no objection to your asking to see the book.  Mr. Knight is a harmless, studious man.  I have met him on two occasions when I was called in to attend his housekeeper, Mrs. Sampson, and he was courtesy itself.  I will go with you and introduce you, if you like.”

Virginia, hanging around and overhearing, begged to be allowed to go too.  “I’d love to see the inside of his house,” she urged.

She was assured she would find it stupid, but this was as nothing compared with the glory of entering the abode of the Miser in company with her ladyship, and the other pigeons looking enviously on outside.

Dr. Prue, of course, had no time to waste, so Margaret Elizabeth hastened to find her pad and pencil, and across the street they went forthwith.  The Miser was discovered in his library, a spacious, shabby room, yet not too shabby for dignity, full of valuable and even rare things, such as old prints and engravings, and most of all of books, which overflowed their shelves in a scholarly disorder not unfamiliar to Margaret Elizabeth.