She said that I had mentioned it once or twice.
"I should have thought that you would have been glad of a little pleasure--innocent, profitable, and entertaining. However, if you think I am not capable of----"
"What do you want to read?"
"What would you like me to read?"
"Miss Sakers lent me this." She handed me a paper-covered volume, ent.i.tled, "The Murglow Mystery; or, The Stain on the Staircase."
"Trash like this is not literature," I said. However, to please her, I glanced at the first page. Half an hour later I said that I should be very sorry to read a book of that stamp out loud.
"Then why do you go on reading it to yourself?"
"Strictly speaking, I am not reading it. I am glancing at it."
When Eliza got up to go to bed, an hour afterward, she asked me if I was still glancing. I kept my temper.
"Try not to be so infernally unreasonable," I said. "If Miss Sakers lends us a book, it is discourteous not to look at it."
On the following night Eliza said that she hoped I was not going to sit up until three in the morning, wasting the gas and ruining my health, over a book that I myself had said--
"And who pays for the gas?"
"n.o.body"s paid last quarter"s yet. Mother can"t do everything, and----"
"Well, we can talk about that some other time. To-night I am going to read aloud to you a play of Shakespeare"s. I wonder if you even know who Shakespeare was?"
"Of course I do."
"Could you honestly say that you have ever read one--only one--of his tragedies?"
"No. Could you?"
"I am going to read "Macbeth" to you, trying to indicate by changes in my voice which character is speaking." I opened the book.
Eliza said that she couldn"t think who it was took her scissors.
"I can"t begin till you keep quiet," I said.
"It"s the second pair that"s gone this week."
"Very well, then," I said, shutting up the book with a bang, "I will not read aloud to you to-night at all. You may get along as you can without it."
"You"re sure you didn"t take those scissors for anything?" she replied, meditatively.
"Now then," I said, on the next night, "I am ready to begin. The tragedy is ent.i.tled "Macbeth." This is the first scene."
"What is the first scene?"
"A blasted heath."
"Well, I think you might give a civil answer to a civil question. There was no occasion to use that word."
"I didn"t."
"You did. I heard it distinctly."
"Do let me explain. It"s Shakespeare uses the word. I was only quoting it. It merely means----"
"Oh, if it"s Shakespeare I suppose it"s all right. n.o.body seems to mind what _he_ says. You can go on."
I read for some time. Eliza, in reply to my question, owned that she had enjoyed it, but she went to bed before her usual time.
When I was preparing to read aloud on the following evening, I was unable to find our copy of Shakespeare. This was very annoying, as it had been a wedding-present. Eliza said that she had found her scissors, and very likely I should find the Shakespeare some other night.
But I never did. I have half thought of buying another copy, or I dare say Eliza"s mother would like to give us it. Eliza thinks not.
THE UNSOLVED PROBLEM
"Eliza," I said one evening, "do you think that you are fonder of me than I am of you, or that I am fonder of you than you are of me?"
She answered, "What is thirteen from twenty-eight?" without looking up from the account-book.
"I do think," I said, "that when I speak to you you might have the civility to pay some little attention."
She replied, "One pound fifteen and two, and I hope you know where we are to get it from, for I don"t. And don"t bang on the table in that silly way, or you"ll spill the ink."
"I did not bang. I tapped slightly from a pardonable impatience. I put a plain question to you some time ago, and I should like a plain answer to it."
"Well, what do you want to talk for when you see I am counting? Now, what is it?"
"What I asked was this. Do I think--I mean, do you think--that I am fonder of me--no, you are fonder of I--well, I"ll begin again. Which of us two would you say was fonder of the other than the other was of the--dash it all, you know what I mean!"
"No, I don"t, but it"s nothing to swear about."
"I was not swearing. If you don"t know what I mean, I"ll try to put it more simply. Are you fonder than I am? There."
"Fonder of what?"
"Fonder of each other."