"Oh, I'll take you back. Just now I've got some odds and ends that will
take a couple of hours to clear up. You'll find plenty to read in the
shack, such as it is."
Thus casually dismissed, Io murmured a "Thank you" which was not as meek
as it sounded, and withdrew to rummage among the canned edibles drawn
from the inexhaustible stock of Sears-Roebuck. Having laid out a
selection, housewifely, and looked to the oil stove derived from the
same source, she turned with some curiosity to the mental pabulum with
which this strange young hermit had provided himself. Would this, too,
bear the mail-order imprint and testify to mail-order standards? At
first glance the answer appeared to be affirmative. The top shelf of the
home-made case sagged with the ineffable slusheries of that most popular
and pious of novelists, Harvey Wheelwright. Near by, "How to Behave on
All Occasions" held forth its unimpeachable precepts, while a little
beyond, "Botany Made Easy" and "The Perfect Letter Writer" proffered
further aid to the aspiring mind. Improvement, stark, blatant
Improvement, advertised itself from that culturous and reeking
compartment. But just below--Io was tempted to rub her eyes--stood
Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy"; a Browning, complete; that inimitably
jocund fictional prank, Frederic's "March Hares," together with the same
author's fine and profoundly just "Damnation of Theron Ware"; Taylor's
translation of Faust; "The [broken-backed] Egoist"; "Lavengro" (Io
touched its magic pages with tender fingers), and a fat, faded, reddish
volume so worn and obscured that she at once took it down and made
explorative entry.
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