she might try to read between my fingers, coming to herself presently, however, to say "It's a haver of a book."
"Those pirate stories are so uninteresting," I would reply without fear, for she was too engrossed to see through me. "Do you think you will finish this one?"
"I may as well go on with it since I have begun it," my mother says, so slily that my sister and I shake our heads at each other to imply, "Was there ever such a woman!"
"There are none of those one-legged scoundrels in my books," I say.
"Better without them," she replies promptly.
"I wonder, mother, what it is about the man that so infatuates the public?"
"He takes no hold of me," she insists. "I would a hantle rather read your books."
I offer obligingly to bring one of them to her, and now she looks at me suspiciously. "You surely believe I like yours best," she says with instant anxiety, and I soothe her by assurances, and retire advising her to read on, just to see if she can find out how he misleads the public. "Oh, I may take a look at it again by and by," she says indifferently, but nevertheless the probability is that as the door shuts the book opens, as if by some mechanical contrivance. I remember how she read "Treasure Island," holding it close to the ribs of
