“’I am not sick, if Brutus have in hand Any exploit worthy the name of honour.’”

“I want to be well because I don’t like to be ill.  But what there is in this foggy, swampy world worth being well for, I’m sure I haven’t found out yet.”

“If you have not, it must be because you have never tried to find out.  But I’m not going to attack you when you are not able to defend yourself.  We shall find a better time for that.  But can’t I do something for you?  Would you like me to read to you for half an hour?”

“No, thank you.  The girls tire me out with reading to me.  I hate the very sound of their voices.”

“I have got to-day’s Times in my pocket.”

“I’ve heard all the news already.”

“Then I think I shall only bore you if I stay.”

He made me no answer.  I rose.  He just let me take his hand, and returned my good morning as if there was nothing good in the world, least of all this same morning.

I found the ladies in the outer room.  Judy was on her knees on the floor occupied with a long row of books.  How the books had got there I wondered; but soon learned the secret which I had in vain asked of the butler on my first visit—­namely, how Mr Stoddart reached the volumes arranged immediately under the ceiling, in shelves, as my reader may remember, that looked like beams radiating from the centre.  For Judy rose from the floor, and proceeded to put in motion a mechanical arrangement concealed in one of the divisions of the book-shelves along the wall; and I now saw that there were strong cords reaching from the ceiling, and attached to the shelf or rather long box sideways open which contained the books.

“Do take care, Judy,” said Ethelwyn.  “You know it is very venturous of you to let that shelf down, when uncle is as jealous of his books as a hen of her chickens.  I oughtn’t to have let you touch the cords.”

“You couldn’t help it, auntie, dear; for I had the shelf half-way down before you saw me,” returned Judy, proceeding to raise the books to their usual position under the ceiling.

But in another moment, either from Judy’s awkwardness, or from the gradual decay and final fracture of some cord, down came the whole shelf with a thundering noise, and the books were scattered hither and thither in confusion about the floor.  Ethelwyn was gazing in dismay, and Judy had built up her face into a defiant look, when the door of the inner room opened and Mr Stoddart appeared.  His brow was already flushed; but when he saw the condition of his idols, (for the lust of the eye had its full share in his regard for his books,) he broke out in a passion to which he could not have given way but for the weak state of his health.

“How dare you?” he said, with terrible emphasis on the word dare.  “Judy, I beg you will not again show yourself in my apartment till I send for you.”

“And then,” said Judy, leaving the room, “I am not in the least likely to be otherwise engaged.”