a sudden miracle put on the springs.

This shows, therefore, that gossipry must be judged by its effects. If it allay the stone or give a pleasant evening it should have reward instead of punishment. And here had Bell diverted me agreeably for an hour. It is true he had given me no “chill and arid knowledge” of Shakespeare, but I had had ample substitute and the clock had struck ten before its time. It were justice, then, that I cast back the lie on Murray and give Bell full acquittal.

No sooner was this decision made than I lifted him tenderly from the shelf where I had sequestered him. Volume seven was on its head, but I set it upright. Then I stroked its sides and blew upon its top, as is my custom. At the last I put him on his former shelf in the company of the chaste Lorna Doone and the gentle ladies of Mrs. Gaskell.

He sits there now, this night, on the top shelf but one, just in line with the eyes, with gilt front winking in the firelight. A decayed Gibbon, I had thought, proclaims a grandfather. To what length, then, of cultured ancestry must not this Bell give evidence?