Then with a sense
of dismay she began to consider, "If we are to meet so often what
are we to talk about? He once tried to converse with me and found
me so ignorant he couldn't. It seemed to me I didn't know anything
that evening, and he'll soon grow disgusted with me again as he sees
my poor little pack of knowledge is like a tramp's bundle that he
carries around with him. I must read--I must study every moment,
or I haven't the remotest chance of success. Success! Oh, merciful
heaven! it's the same as if I were setting about it all deliberately
and there's no use of deceiving myself. I hope it isn't very, very
wrong."
She went to her father's library with flushed cheeks and hesitating
steps, as if it were the tree from which she might pluck the fruit
of forbidden knowledge. The long rows of ponderous and neglected
books appalled her; she took down two or three and they seemed
like unopened mines, deep and rocky. She felt instinctively that
there was not time for her to transmute their ores into graceful
and natural mental adornments.
"Methuselah himself couldn't read them all," she exclaimed. "By the
powers! if here isn't more books than I can carry, on one subject.
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