Jane shrivelled and shivered under this. She regretted doubly that she had been betrayed into such an unstinted expression of her honest interest. "All for show and display," she muttered, as she bowed her head to search out new titles; "bought by the pound and stacked by the cord; doing nobody any good--their owners least of all." She resolved to admire openly nothing more whatever. Mrs. Bates sank into one of the big chairs and motioned Jane towards another. "Your father was a great reader," she said, with a resumption of her retrospective expression. "He was very fond of books--especially poetry. He often read aloud to me; when he thought I was likely to be alone, he would bring his Shakespeare over. I believe I could give you even now, if I was put to it, Antony's address to the Romans. Yes; and almost all of Hamlet's soliloquies, too." Jane was preparing to make a stand against this woman, and here, apparently, was the opportunity. "Do you mean to tell me," she inquired, with something approaching sternness, "that my father--_my father_--was ever fond of poetry and--and music, and--and all that sort of thing?" "Certainly. Why not? I remember your father as a high-minded young man, with a great deal of good taste; I always thought him much above the average. And that Shakespeare of his--I recall it perfectly. It was a chubby little book bound in brown leather, with an embossed stamp, and print a great deal too fine for _my eyes_. _He_ always had to do the reading; and he read very pleasantly." She scanned Jane closely. "Perhaps you have never done your father justice." Jane felt herself driven to defence--even to apology. "The fact is," she said, "pa is so quiet; he never says much of anything. I'm about the only one of the family who knows him very well, and I guess I don't know him any too well." She felt, though, that Mrs. Bates had no right to defend her father against his own daughter; no, nor any need. "I suppose so," said Mrs. Bates, slowly. She crossed over to the radiator and began working at the valve. "I _told_ Granger I knew he'd be sorry if he didn't put in furnace-flues too. I really can't ask you to take your things off down here; let's go upstairs--that's the only warm place I can think of." She paused in the hall. "Wouldn't you like to see the rest of the rooms before you go up?" "Yes--I don't mind," responded Jane. She was determined to encourage no ostentatious pride; so she made her acceptance as indifferent as she felt good manners would allow. Mrs. Bates crossed over the hall and paused in a wide doorway. "This," she indicated, in a tone slightly suggestive of the cicerone, "is the--well, the Grand Salon; at least, that's what the newspapers have decided to call it. Do you care anything for Louis Quinze?"