"If I want to read political economy, I've got my father's books. I like a story to be about love, and to end happily. If you think of sending me another novel, remember _I like plenty of orange-blossoms, not little bits of brain_." But oddly enough, she had no rooted objection to reading aloud to her grandmother any non-religious book, however serious. Val found that many of these dignified tomes were not as dull as you might think; but for long she laid the credit to Mrs. Gano's door. It was an old story that that lady had a way of making things seem interesting. Val was always privately grateful, even touched, at being let off from the religious readings. Once when Mrs. Gano was recovering from an illness, Val, sitting at the bedside, was visited by a fresh sense of her growing comradeship, even her growing dependence upon that alert and sympathetic mind. In a softened mood she fell to thinking how ready her grandmother had always been to put the worked book-marks in her Church histories and doctrinal treatises, and listen to Val read biography and travel aloud, all the while letting the girl feel that she was not only adding to the "common stock of harmless pleasure," but was sparing the older eyes. "You are very good to me," Val said, leaning her head against the "painted calico" coverlid. It made her happy to feel the long, thin hand upon her hair. She had never got over the old childish sense of its being a proud thing to receive a mark of favor at those hands. "Shall we read?" said the girl, presently. "If you like." In a flush of generous feeling, she reached out and took up _Literature and Dogma_ from the table at the bedside. "What's that?" asked Mrs. Gano, narrowing her eyes. Val told her. "Oh no"--she sat up and looked round--"I sent to the library after Chevalier Bunsen for you and me." "Let me read you this. You mustn't always think about what I like." "Nonsense, child; Arnold's book would bore you, and you'd read it so it would bore me. Find Bunsen." "You let Emmie read you this." "Emmeline's different. Find Bunsen. You'll like Bunsen." "Why do you suppose I have such a rage for biographies?" Val demanded, a shade anxiously. "Partly because you're young." "Emmie's younger still." Mrs. Gano smiled and shook her head enigmatically. "Young, and more interested in people, as yet, than in ideas." "That has a very poor sound--like the personal column of a newspaper." "Oh, it's natural enough. The walls of your own room tell the same story--all faces." "Yes, but to hang up in your bedroom, what else is there?" Mrs. Gano smiled, and then half whimsically: "I don't say there's any special advantage in it, but I've always had a liking for the 'flower pieces' we painted in our youth, and for landscapes and marine views." "Oh, _those_--" "Exactly!" and the older woman laughed outright.