I went to Dr. Snell's as soon as I was able. He was in his bedchamber, writing a sermon on fine note-paper, and had disarranged the wide ruffles of his shirt so that he looked like a mildly angry turkey. Thrusting his spectacles up into the roots of his hair, he rose, and led me into a large room adjoining his bedroom, which contained nothing but tall bookcases, threw open the doors of one, pushed up a little ladder before it, for me to mount to a row of volumes bound in calf, whose backs were labeled "British Classics." "There," he said, "you will find 'The Spectator,'" and trotted back to his sermon, with his pen in his mouth. I examined the books, and selected Tom Jones and Goldsmith's Plays to take home. From that time I grazed at pleasure in his oddly assorted library, ranging from "The Gentleman's Magazine" to a file of the "Boston Recorder"; but never a volume of poetry anywhere. I became a devourer of books which I could not digest, and their influence located in my mind curious and inconsistent relations between facts and ideas. My music lessons in Milford were my only task. I remained inapt, while Veronica played better and better; when I saw her fingers interpreting her feelings, touching the keys of the piano as if they were the chords of her thoughts, practice by note seemed a soulless, mechanical effort, which I would not make. One day mother and I were reading the separate volumes of charming Miss Austen's "Mansfield Park," when a message arrived from Aunt Mercy, with the news of Grand'ther Warren's dangerous illness. Mother dropped her book on the floor, but I turned down the leaf where I was reading. She went to Barmouth immediately, and the next day grand'ther died. He gave all he had to Aunt Mercy, except six silver spoons, which he directed the Barmouth silversmith to make for Caroline, who was now married to her missionary. Mother came home to prepare for the funeral. When the bonnets, veils, and black gloves came home, Veronica declared she would not go. As she had been allowed to stay away from Grand'ther Warren living, why should she be forced to go to him when dead? She was so violent in her opposition that mother ordered Temperance to keep her in her room. Father tried to persuade her, but she grew white, and trembled so that he told her she should stay at home. While we were gone she sent her bonnet to the Widow Smith's daughter, who appeared in the Poor Seats wearing it, on the very Sunday after the funeral, when we all went to church in our mourning to make the discovery, which discomposed us exceedingly.