better than I did. Do you like a take a run with Mysie before dinner?
Or there is the amusing shelf. Books may be taken out after one
o'clock, and they must be put back at eight, or they are confiscated
for the ensuing day,' she added, pointing to a paper below where this
sentence was written.

Dolores was still rather tired, and more inclined to make friends with
the books than with the cousins. There were fewer than she expected,
and nothing like so many absolute stories as she was used to reading
with Maude Sefton.

'Those are such grown-up books,' she said to Mysie, who came to assist
her choice, and pointed to the upper shelves.

'Oh, but grown-up books are nicest!' returned Mysie; 'at least, when
they don't begin being stupid and marrying too soon. They must do it
at last to get out of the story, and it's nicer than dying, but they
can have lots of nice adventures first. But here are the 'Feats on the
Fiords' and the 'Crofton Boys' and 'Water Babies,' and all the volumes
of 'Aunt Judy,' if you like the younger sort. Or the dear, dear 'Thorn
Fortress;' that's good for young and old.'

'Haven't you any books of your own?'

'Oh yes; this 'Thorn Fortress' is Val's, and 'A York and a Lancaster
Rose' is mine, but whenever any one gives us a book, if it is not a
weeny little gem like Gill's 'Christian Year,' or my 'Little Pillow,'
or Val's 'Children in the Wood,' we bring it to mother, and if it is
nice, we keep it here, for every one to read. If it is just rather
silly, and stupid, we may read it once, and then she keeps it; and if