"Yes," answered Mr. Lewis, "he would have made a prime soldier, if he hadn't made the mistake of being a doctor of divinity." "The church needed his authoritative speech," said Mr. Southard, with decision. "To the minister of God belongs the voice of denunciation as well as the voice of prayer." {161} Mr. Lewis gave his moustache an impatient twitch. Mr. Granger seized the first opportunity to speak aside to Margaret. "You like these people? You are contented?" he asked hastily. "Yes, and yes," she replied. "You think that you will feel at home when you have become better acquainted with them?" he pursued. "It seems to me that I have always lived here," she answered, smiling. "There is not the least strangeness. Indeed, surprising things, if they are pleasant, never surprise me. I am always expecting miracles. It is only painful or trivial events which find me incredulous and ill at ease." The chandeliers were lighted, and the windows closed; but, according to their pleasant occasional custom, the curtains were not drawn for a while yet. If any person in the street took pleasure in seeing this family gathering, they were welcome. Mrs. Lewis broke a few sprays from a musk-vine over-starred with yellow blossoms, and twined them into a wreath as she slowly approached the two who were standing near a book-case. "_Vive le roi!_" she said, lifting the wreath to the marble brows of a Shakespeare that stood on the lower shelf. Margaret glanced along a row of blue and brown covers, and exclaimed, "My Brownings! all hail! there they are!" "You also!" said Mrs. Lewis, with a grimace. "Own, now, that they jolt horribly--that the Browning Pegasus is a racker, and that the Browning road up Parnassus is macadamized with--well, diamonds, if you will, but diamonds in the rough. True, the hoofs do make dents; they do dash over the ground with a four-footed trampling; but--" a shrug and a shiver completed the sentence. "Mrs. Browning needs a lapidary," Mr. Granger said; "but her husband's constipated style is a necessity. His books are books of quintessences. At first I thought him suggestive; but soon perceived that he was stimulating instead. He seems to have brushed a subject. Look again, and you will see that he has exhausted it." Margaret read the titles of the books, and in them read, also, something of the minds of her new associates. There were a few shining names from each of the great nations, and a good selection of English and American authors, the patriarchs in their places. She had a word for each, but thought, "I wonder why I like Lowell, almost in silence, yet like him best."