But this for the moment she was not destined to enjoy. The library was empty, save for the presence of the last person whom Lady Jim wished to encounter. When Miss Jaffray looked up from a gigantic volume with an almost toothless smile, Leah turned to fly. But the old maid arrested her flight with a joyful shout. She usually did shout, as her brother was slightly deaf, which deceived her into thinking the entire human race was likewise afflicted. "So sweet of you to come here," shouted Miss Jaffray. "I am just dying for some one to talk to." If the decision had been left to Lady Jim, she would have gladly avoided the talk, to bring about this result. But it occurred to her scheming mind that this dull spinster was wealthy, and might be cajoled or frightened into lending money. Leah did not specify the sum, even in her own mind, as she did not know how much more this virgin soil would yield, if properly worked. Sitting down promptly, she began to chat on the first subject that came into her head. "What are you reading so earnestly?" she asked sweetly. "The _Morte d'Arthur_," said the spinster, fondling the ponderous tome which her weak knees could hardly support. "Heavens!" thought Lady Jim, with a charming smile, meaning nothing, "am I to be bored with another Arthur?" "The black-letter edition," went on Miss Jaffray, in a loud and oratorical voice. "Most interesting. So sweet to think of those dear dead days, when knights went about as troubadours with guitars in steel armour, dying for queens of beauty." "Delightful," assented Lady Jim, yawning at the dullness of the picture; "but"--with a disparaging glance at the lettering--"isn't it rather like reading a German newspaper? I prefer novels myself." "So do I, when not in a poetic humour," shouted her companion. "All the old, old masters of fiction. Dickens, Bulwer-Lytton, Wilkie Collins. I love them all--every one." "I seem to know those names," ventured Leah, carefully. "What did they write, Miss Jaffray?" The spinster gasped. Brought up in a library, she could not understand this fashionable ignorance, which, truth to say, was partially assumed. Leah was by no means the ignoramus she made herself out to be. But, for the sake of business, she thought it judicious to foster Miss Jaffray's vanity by assuming an inferior position. "Do you ever read?" asked Miss Jaffray, in the voice of Goliath challenging the army of Saul. "Oh yes; society newspapers, and French novels." "But they are so improper." "Nothing amusing is improper to my mind," said Lady Jim, calmly; "and I really did skim through a page or two of Dickens. Horribly dull, I thought him." "Oh!" Miss Jaffray gasped again. "He did so much good."