She possessed an investigating and tentative mind, and this forbidden territory appealed eloquently to her unruly will. But to get them out was not an easy task. They were tightly packed, and the moulding was like unto a prison bar. But Patience was a person of resource. She gave one of the books a smart thump, and it slanted inward. She inserted her thumb under its lifted edge and worried it out. It was a small volume bound in black, its lettering worn away. She opened it and glanced curiously at the titlepage. “Boccaccio’s Decameron” winked invitingly. The pages were spotted with yellow. The drawings looked as if the stories might be reasonably interesting. Patience curled herself in the deep window-seat, quite sure that she had found a treasure. The book had a furtive and apologetic air. “I have grown old, at least,” it seemed to say. “I am but an elderly rake, and can only mumble of the past.” She read a few stories, then put the book back in its place with a resentful shove. Being wholly without the knowledge for which Eve pined, the stories were stupid and meaningless to her. She took down a thick volume bound in ragged calf. On the back was one large word, “Byron.” The leaves of this book were spotted too, but on the leaves were poems, and she loved poetry. Even when it was uninteresting she enjoyed the rhythm. She returned to the window-seat, and child-like, looked at the pictures first. The portrait of Byron she fell in love with immediately, and knocking her composite off its pedestal, lifted that proud passionate face to the station of honour. There was an immense-eyed picture of the Bride of Abydos which she thought looked like Rosita, and one of the Corsair dashing in upon his segregated love:— “My own Medora, sure thy song is sad!” Francesca and Paola gazed at each other across a table:— “That day no further leaf we did uncover.” A castle which looked older than the book loomed massively from the page:— “Lake Leman lies by Chillon’s walls.”