“It is marvelous how affection can be concealed,” I observed, with sarcasm. Hephzy was back at me like a flash. “Of course they don't tell you of it,” she said. “If they did you'd probably tell 'em to their faces that they were fibbin' and not speak to 'em again. But they do like you, and I know it.” It was useless to carry the argument further. When Hephzy begins chanting my praises I find it easier to surrender--and change the subject. In Boston we shopped. It seems to me that we did nothing else. I bought what I needed the very first day, clothes, hat, steamer coat and traveling cap included. It did not take me long; fortunately I am of the average height and shape and the salesmen found me easy to please. My shopping tour was ended by three o'clock and I spent the remainder of the afternoon at a bookseller's. There was a set of “Early English Poets” there, nineteen little, fat, chunky volumes, not new and shiny and grand, but middle-aged and shabby and comfortable, which appealed to me. The price, however, was high; I had the uneasy feeling that I ought not to afford it. Then the bookseller himself, who also was fat and comfortably shabby, and who had beguiled from me the information that I was about to travel, suggested that the “Poets” would make very pleasant reading en route. “I have found,” he said, beaming over his spectacles, “that a little book of this kind,” patting one of the volumes, “which may be carried in the pocket, is a rare traveling companion. When you wish his society he is there, and when you tire of him you can shut him up. You can't do that with all traveling companions, you know. Ha! ha!” He chuckled over his joke and I chuckled with him. Humor of that kind is expensive, for I bought the “English Poets” and ordered them sent to my hotel. It was not until they were delivered, an hour later, that I began to wonder what I should do with them. Our trunks were likely to be crowded and I could not carry all of the nineteen volumes in my pockets. Hephzibah, who had been shopping on her own hook, did not return until nearly seven. She returned weary and almost empty-handed. “But didn't you buy ANYTHING?” I asked. “Where in the world have you been?” She had been everywhere, so she said. This wasn't entirely true, but I gathered that she had visited about every department store in the city. She had found ever so many things she liked, but oh dear! they did cost so much.