Eliza Part 6

She said that I had mentioned it once or twice.

"I should have thought that you would have been glad of a little pleasure--innocent, profitable, and entertaining. However, if you think I am not capable of----"

"What do you want to read?"

"What would you like me to read?"

"Miss Sakers lent me this." She handed me a paper-covered volume, ent.i.tled, "The Murglow Mystery; or, The Stain on the Staircase."

"Trash like this is not literature," I said. However, to please her, I glanced at the first page. Half an hour later I said that I should be very sorry to read a book of that stamp out loud.

"Then why do you go on reading it to yourself?"

"Strictly speaking, I am not reading it. I am glancing at it."

When Eliza got up to go to bed, an hour afterward, she asked me if I was still glancing. I kept my temper.

"Try not to be so infernally unreasonable," I said. "If Miss Sakers lends us a book, it is discourteous not to look at it."

On the following night Eliza said that she hoped I was not going to sit up until three in the morning, wasting the gas and ruining my health, over a book that I myself had said--

"And who pays for the gas?"

"n.o.body's paid last quarter's yet. Mother can't do everything, and----"

"Well, we can talk about that some other time. To-night I am going to read aloud to you a play of Shakespeare's. I wonder if you even know who Shakespeare was?"

"Of course I do."

"Could you honestly say that you have ever read one--only one--of his tragedies?"

"No. Could you?"

"I am going to read 'Macbeth' to you, trying to indicate by changes in my voice which character is speaking." I opened the book.

Eliza said that she couldn't think who it was took her scissors.

"I can't begin till you keep quiet," I said.

"It's the second pair that's gone this week."

"Very well, then," I said, shutting up the book with a bang, "I will not read aloud to you to-night at all. You may get along as you can without it."

"You're sure you didn't take those scissors for anything?" she replied, meditatively.

"Now then," I said, on the next night, "I am ready to begin. The tragedy is ent.i.tled 'Macbeth.' This is the first scene."

"What is the first scene?"

"A blasted heath."

"Well, I think you might give a civil answer to a civil question. There was no occasion to use that word."

"I didn't."

"You did. I heard it distinctly."

"Do let me explain. It's Shakespeare uses the word. I was only quoting it. It merely means----"

"Oh, if it's Shakespeare I suppose it's all right. n.o.body seems to mind what _he_ says. You can go on."

I read for some time. Eliza, in reply to my question, owned that she had enjoyed it, but she went to bed before her usual time.

When I was preparing to read aloud on the following evening, I was unable to find our copy of Shakespeare. This was very annoying, as it had been a wedding-present. Eliza said that she had found her scissors, and very likely I should find the Shakespeare some other night.

But I never did. I have half thought of buying another copy, or I dare say Eliza's mother would like to give us it. Eliza thinks not.

THE UNSOLVED PROBLEM

"Eliza," I said one evening, "do you think that you are fonder of me than I am of you, or that I am fonder of you than you are of me?"

She answered, "What is thirteen from twenty-eight?" without looking up from the account-book.

"I do think," I said, "that when I speak to you you might have the civility to pay some little attention."

She replied, "One pound fifteen and two, and I hope you know where we are to get it from, for I don't. And don't bang on the table in that silly way, or you'll spill the ink."

"I did not bang. I tapped slightly from a pardonable impatience. I put a plain question to you some time ago, and I should like a plain answer to it."

"Well, what do you want to talk for when you see I am counting? Now, what is it?"

"What I asked was this. Do I think--I mean, do you think--that I am fonder of me--no, you are fonder of I--well, I'll begin again. Which of us two would you say was fonder of the other than the other was of the--dash it all, you know what I mean!"

"No, I don't, but it's nothing to swear about."

"I was not swearing. If you don't know what I mean, I'll try to put it more simply. Are you fonder than I am? There."

"Fonder of what?"

"Fonder of each other."