Alice smiled, and pushed away four of the eight books she had selected, as if afraid she had been greedy, and now felt that it was best to wait a little.

Eva looked up with some anxiety in her frank eyes as she said, “Now it is my turn.  Must I give up my dear homely books, and take to Ruskin, Kant, or Plato?”

Mrs. Warburton laughed, as she stroked the pretty brown head at her knee.

“Not yet, my love, perhaps never, for those are not the masters you need, I fancy.  Since you like stories about every-day people, try some of the fine biographies of real men and women about whom you should know something.  You will find their lives full of stirring, helpful, and lovely experiences, and in reading of these you will get courage and hope and faith to bear your own trials as they come.  True stories suit you, and are the best, for there we get real tragedy and comedy, and the lessons all must learn.”

“Thank you!  I will begin at once if you will kindly give me a list of such as would be good for me,” cried Eva, with the sweet docility of one eager to be all that is lovable and wise in woman.

“Give us a list, and we will try to improve in the best way.  You know what we need, and love to help foolish girls, or you wouldn’t be so kind and patient with us,” said Alice, going to sit beside Carrie, hoping for much discussion of this, to her, very interesting subject.

“I will, with pleasure; but I read few modern novels, so I may not be a good judge there.  Most of them seem very poor stuff, and I cannot waste time even to skim them as some people do.  I still like the old-fashioned ones I read as a girl, though you would laugh at them.  Did any of you ever read ’Thaddeus of Warsaw’?”

“I have, and thought it very funny; so were ‘Evelina’ and ‘Cecilia.’  I wanted to try Smollett and Fielding, after reading some fine essays about them, but Papa told me I must wait,” said Alice.

“Ah, my dears, in my day, Thaddeus was our hero, and we thought the scene where he and Miss Beaufort are in the Park a most thrilling one.  Two fops ask Thaddeus where he got his boots, and he replies, with withering dignity, ‘Where I got my sword, gentlemen.’  I treasured the picture of that episode for a long time.  Thaddeus wears a hat as full of black plumes as a hearse, Hessian boots with tassels, and leans over Mary, who languishes on the seat in a short-waisted gown, limp scarf, poke bonnet, and large bag,—­the height of elegance then, but very funny now.  Then William Wallace in ’Scottish Chiefs.’  Bless me! we cried over him as much as you do over your ‘Heir of Clifton,’ or whatever the boy’s name is.  You wouldn’t get through it, I fancy; and as for poor, dear, prosy Richardson, his letter-writing heroines would bore you to death.  Just imagine a lover saying to a friend, ’I begged my angel to stay and sip one dish of tea.  She sipped one dish and flew.’”

“Now, I’m sure that’s sillier than anything the Duchess ever wrote with her five-o’clock teas and flirtations over plum-cake on lawns,” cried Carrie, as they all laughed at the immortal Lovelace.