Mr. Bemerton was somewhat depressed too. Old-book buying, he said, was declining steadily. Reprints were hitting him very hard, but the love of pleasure harder. People spent their money now on entertainment and food, where they once used not only to dine at home but sit at home all the evening reading. Now if they sat at home they played bridge. He wouldn't be so pessimistic as to say that England was going to the dogs, but he would like to see something happen to make us pull ourselves together. His niece, Miss Waghorn, had left him. Married a mild young man in a hosier's, ten years her junior, and the pair of them reminded Mr. Bemerton of nothing so much as a cruet: oil and vinegar. "But I dare say they'll mix," he said. "They met in a lodging-house at Margate: nothing like such places to settle one's hash. With no home comforts one gets desperate for company, and then Cupid begins to shoot. "I've got a little book for you," said Mr. Bemerton, "that I've been keeping till you came in. A privately printed one. It would be too much to say that they are the best books, but they often have a quality that the others haven't. Sometimes of course they're merely the result of vanity, but here and there, as in the present case, they contain a very special kind of record, such as a modest observer with a humorous sense of character might like to preserve for her friends but not wish the world at large to see, lest perhaps some of the simple folk described in the pages might get to know of it and be hurt." Mr. Bemerton, who had been turning a little volume over and over in his hands all this time, while mine were stretched out and withdrawn and again outstretched to take it, here opened it. "It's the modestest little thing," he said. "Just a few pages of talk among villagers in the Midlands; but it's a jewel of literature. Among its very great admirers when it appeared was Mr. Gladstone. Now, I've only one copy and I can't get another; but I'll lend it to you. You must treat it as if it were a black pearl." I have done so and allowed no one but Naomi to see it. It is a strange little book and might well cease to be private, although one likes to think of a few good things being withheld from the world at large. Miss A., the author or recorder of these conversations, was an invalid lady living in the country, to whom her humble neighbours were a perpetual joy; she helped them, she sympathized with them, and she laughed at their little foibles afterwards. In these pages she has preserved certain of their odd speeches, the period being chiefly early in the eighteen sixties. But the type is eternal.