Summer | Page 3

buckram back of a disintegrated copy of "The
Lamplighter." But there was no other way of getting any lace to trim
her summer blouse, and since Ally Hawes, the poorest girl in the
village, had shown herself in church with enviable transparencies about

the shoulders, Charity's hook had travelled faster. She unrolled the lace,
dug the hook into a loop, and bent to the task with furrowed brows.
Suddenly the door opened, and before she had raised her eyes she knew
that the young man she had seen going in at the Hatchard gate had
entered the library.
Without taking any notice of her he began to move slowly about the
long vault-like room, his hands behind his back, his short-sighted eyes
peering up and down the rows of rusty bindings. At length he reached
the desk and stood before her.
"Have you a card-catalogue?" he asked in a pleasant abrupt voice; and
the oddness of the question caused her to drop her work.
"A WHAT?"
"Why, you know----" He broke off, and she became conscious that he
was looking at her for the first time, having apparently, on his entrance,
included her in his general short-sighted survey as part of the furniture
of the library.
The fact that, in discovering her, he lost the thread of his remark, did
not escape her attention, and she looked down and smiled. He smiled
also.
"No, I don't suppose you do know," he corrected himself. "In fact, it
would be almost a pity----"
She thought she detected a slight condescension in his tone, and asked
sharply: "Why?"
"Because it's so much pleasanter, in a small library like this, to poke
about by one's self--with the help of the librarian."
He added the last phrase so respectfully that she was mollified, and
rejoined with a sigh: "I'm afraid I can't help you much."
"Why?" he questioned in his turn; and she replied that there weren't

many books anyhow, and that she'd hardly read any of them. "The
worms are getting at them," she added gloomily.
"Are they? That's a pity, for I see there are some good ones." He
seemed to have lost interest in their conversation, and strolled away
again, apparently forgetting her. His indifference nettled her, and she
picked up her work, resolved not to offer him the least assistance.
Apparently he did not need it, for he spent a long time with his back to
her, lifting down, one after another, the tall cob-webby volumes from a
distant shelf.
"Oh, I say!" he exclaimed; and looking up she saw that he had drawn
out his handkerchief and was carefully wiping the edges of the book in
his hand. The action struck her as an unwarranted criticism on her care
of the books, and she said irritably: "It's not my fault if they're dirty."
He turned around and looked at her with reviving interest. "Ah--then
you're not the librarian?"
"Of course I am; but I can't dust all these books. Besides, nobody ever
looks at them, now Miss Hatchard's too lame to come round."
"No, I suppose not." He laid down the book he had been wiping, and
stood considering her in silence. She wondered if Miss Hatchard had
sent him round to pry into the way the library was looked after, and the
suspicion increased her resentment. "I saw you going into her house
just now, didn't I?" she asked, with the New England avoidance of the
proper name. She was determined to find out why he was poking about
among her books.
"Miss Hatchard's house? Yes--she's my cousin and I'm staying there,"
the young man answered; adding, as if to disarm a visible distrust: "My
name is Harney--Lucius Harney. She may have spoken of me."
"No, she hasn't," said Charity, wishing she could have said: "Yes, she
has."
"Oh, well----" said Miss Hatchard's cousin with a laugh; and after

another pause, during which it occurred to Charity that her answer had
not been encouraging, he remarked: "You don't seem strong on
architecture."
Her bewilderment was complete: the more she wished to appear to
understand him the more unintelligible his remarks became. He
reminded her of the gentleman who had "explained" the pictures at
Nettleton, and the weight of her ignorance settled down on her again
like a pall.
"I mean, I can't see that you have any books on the old houses about
here. I suppose, for that matter, this part of the country hasn't been
much explored. They all go on doing Plymouth and Salem. So stupid.
My cousin's house, now, is remarkable. This place must have had a
past--it must have been more of a place once." He stopped short, with
the blush of a shy man who overhears himself, and fears he has been
voluble. "I'm an architect, you