“So Daddy thinks,” said Mary. “But it isn’t, really. It is full of the most interesting stories and legends and beautiful things. This library bores Daddy almost to death, because all the books on these two walls are poetry. I believe that Aunt Nan had the works of every old poet who ever wrote in the English language. And see, these are the lives of the poets.” She pointed to the shelves in one corner. “Huh!” grunted Katy. “Well, what of it?” “Well, you see,” said Mary, looking up at Aunt Nan’s portrait, “the more I stay in this library, the more I like Aunt Nan’s books, and the more I want to please Aunt Nan herself. I like her, Katy.” “I don’t!” said Katy, eyeing the portrait sideways. “You never had her for a neighbor, you see.” “She never did anything to you, did she?” asked Mary. “No-o,” drawled Katy reluctantly. “She never did anything either good or bad to me. But--she was awfully queer!” “Of course she was,” agreed Mary. “But that isn’t the worst thing in the world, to be queer. And she was awfully kind to me.-- Say, Katy, don’t you like Shakespeare?” “Not very well,” confessed Katy. “Well, I do,” Mary asserted. “I haven’t read much of him, but I’m going to. Every time I look at that head of Shakespeare on the mantelpiece, I remember that it was my composition about Shakespeare that was at the bottom of almost everything nice that has happened in Crowfield. Why, if it hadn’t been for him, perhaps we shouldn’t have come to live here at all, and then I shouldn’t ever have known _you_, Katy Summers!” “Gracious!” exclaimed Katy. “Wouldn’t that have been awful? Yes, I believe I do like him a little, since he did _that_. I wrote a composition about him once, too. It didn’t bring anything good in my direction. But then, it wasn’t a very good composition. I only got a _C_ with it.” “Well,” said Mary, “I feel as if I owe him something, and Aunt Nan something. And sooner or later I’m going to read everything he ever wrote.” “Goodness!” said Katy. “Then you’ll never have time to read anything else, I guess. Look!”-- She pointed around the walls. “Why, there are hundreds of Shakespeares. Hundreds and hundreds!” “They are mostly different editions of the same thing,” said Mary wisely. “I shan’t have to read every edition. There aren’t so very many books by him, really. Not more than thirty, I think. I’ve been looking at this little red set that’s so easy to handle and has such nice notes. I like the queer spelling. I’m going to read ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ first. I think that’s what Aunt Nan meant.” “What do you mean by ‘_what Aunt Nan meant_’?” asked Katy curiously. “Has she written you another letter?” Mary had told her about the will.