titles again, finding a delight in the inspection of the Hawthornes, the Longfellows, the Tennysons, and other favorites of her idle hours.  Meantime the clerk’s eyes were busy, and no doubt his admiration was returning again—­or may be he was only gauging her probable literary tastes by some sagacious system of admeasurement only known to his guild.  Now he began to “assist” her in making a selection; but his efforts met with no success—­indeed they only annoyed her and unpleasantly interrupted her meditations.  Presently, while she was holding a copy of “Venetian Life” in her hand and running over a familiar passage here and there, the clerk said, briskly, snatching up a paper-covered volume and striking the counter a smart blow with it to dislodge the dust: 

“Now here is a work that we’ve sold a lot of.  Everybody that’s read it likes it”—­and he intruded it under her nose; “it’s a book that I can recommend—­’The Pirate’s Doom, or the Last of the Buccaneers.’  I think it’s one of the best things that’s come out this season.”

Laura pushed it gently aside her hand and went on and went on filching from “Venetian Life.”

“I believe I do not want it,” she said.

The clerk hunted around awhile, glancing at one title and then another, but apparently not finding what he wanted.

However, he succeeded at last.  Said he: 

“Have you ever read this, ma’m?  I am sure you’ll like it.  It’s by the author of ‘The Hooligans of Hackensack.’  It is full of love troubles and mysteries and all sorts of such things.  The heroine strangles her own mother.  Just glance at the title please,—­’Gonderil the Vampire, or The Dance of Death.’  And here is ’The Jokist’s Own Treasury, or, The Phunny Phellow’s Bosom Phriend.’  The funniest thing!—­I’ve read it four times, ma’m, and I can laugh at the very sight of it yet.  And ‘Gonderil,’ —­I assure you it is the most splendid book I ever read.  I know you will like these books, ma’m, because I’ve read them myself and I know what they are.”

“Oh, I was perplexed—­but I see how it is, now.  You must have thought I asked you to tell me what sort of books I wanted—­for I am apt to say things which I don’t really mean, when I am absent minded.  I suppose I did ask you, didn’t I?”

“No ma’m,—­but I—­”

“Yes, I must have done it, else you would not have offered your services, for fear it might be rude.  But don’t be troubled—­it was all my fault.  I ought not to have been so heedless—­I ought not to have asked you.”

“But you didn’t ask me, ma’m.  We always help customers all we can.  You see our experience—­living right among books all the time—­that sort of thing makes us able to help a customer make a selection, you know.”

“Now does it, indeed?  It is part of your business, then?”

“Yes’m, we always help.”

“How good it is of you.  Some people would think it rather obtrusive, perhaps, but I don’t—­I think it is real kindness—­even charity.  Some people jump to conclusions without any thought—­you have noticed that?”