Page:Her Benny - Silas K Hocking (Warne, 1890).djvu/278

254 and give you a start in life. I commenced as a clerk at the desk, and what I have accomplished there is no reason why you may not. What do you say, now?"

"I hardly know what to say, " said Benny. "I am very much obliged to you for your kind offer, but I would like to talk with Mr. and Mrs. Fisher about the matter before I came to a decision."

"You are quite right, Mr. Bates. Let me know this day week; and now let us go into the drawing-room and see the ladies."

Benny followed Mr. Munroe like one in a dream up a broad flight of stairs, and into a large and luxuriously furnished room. Then commenced the introduction which he had so much dreaded. He bowed to each one in turn, Mr. Munroe mentioning the name of each person; but Benny never heard a word he said, and he sat down with a feeling of infinite relief, and took up a volume of Milton that was lying on a table near him. Then Miss Munroe came forward with the question—

"Are you fond of poetry, Mr. Bates?"

"Yes, very."

"You know Wordsworth, of course?"

"No, I ought to be ashamed to say so, but I do not."

And then followed a conversation about poets and authors of various kinds, and Benny soon forgot his shyness, and chatted away with as much freedom as if he had been at Scout Farm.

By-and-bye Eva Lawrence came forward shyly, and