“It’s ours,” retorted Louisa. “We can bang it if we like.” “My principles,” repeated Erb with relish, “prevent me from accepting anything whatsoever concerning which I have reason to believe that it had not been acquired, or bought, or paid for by the party at whose hands—at whose hands–” “That’s right, Erb,” said Louisa encouragingly. “At whose hands that gift is, so to speak, attempted to be bestowed.” “I shall look pretty,” protested Alice, “carrying that about all the evening.” “If it has that effect,” said her short sister, “I don’t see how you can grumble. Come in the bedroom and show me how you manage this new way of doing up the hair.” Erb read a chapter from Herbert Spencer whilst the girls were out of the room, well repaid if here and there he understood a sentence, or now and again caught sight of a view that soon eluded him. The book had been recommended by a speaker at the Liberal and Radical Club a few Sundays before, an Honourable Somebody, whose proud boast it was that he had unsuccessfully contested more seats at general and at bye-elections than any man belonging to his party, and who was, indeed, such an uncompromising bore, that he might well and appropriately have been subsidized by his very grateful opponents. The Honourable Somebody had also strongly recommended a book by Ruskin, and this, too, Erb had procured from the Free Library, but had given it up after a brief struggle, confessing that it was a bit too thick even for him. Erb made notes on the back of parcels’ waybills when he came on something that seemed to him lucid: smiled to think of the start his companions would give when they heard him say in a speech, “I am inclined to go with our friend Spencer and say with him—” conveying in this way an impression that his acquaintance with literature was so complete that he had but to pick and choose from the treasures of his memory in order to give an illuminating quotation. He had made a bag of five when his sisters returned to the front room; Louisa without her fierce hair curlers, her head decked out in a new fashion, and more amiable in her attitude towards her sister, and, indeed, holding her arm affectionately. Alice, with her hat off, slightly less austere, took up Erb’s book with a word of apology and remarked, “Oh, yes!” in the manner of one recognising an old companion. “Read it?” “Well,” said the tall sister, “I have not exactly read it, but I have heard of it. Two of our young ladies talk about it sometimes at meals: Lady Frances declares she can’t understand half of it.” “It’s easy enough,” said Erb, “once you get the hang of the thing.” “What are the young ladies like, Alice, at your new place?” asked the short sister at the looking-glass. “I’ve often been going to tell you, but you’d never listen,” complained Alice. “Tell us now!”