This agreeable sense of solitude, of having the house to herself, of which I have spoken, always excited Gertrude's imagination; she could not have told you why, and neither can her humble historian.

It always seemed to her that she must do something particular--that she must honor the occasion; and while she roamed about, wondering what she could do, the occasion usually came to an end.
To-day she wondered more than ever.

At last she took down a book; there was no library in the house, but there were books in all the rooms.

None of them were forbidden books, and Gertrude had not stopped at home for the sake of a chance to climb to the inaccessible shelves.

She possessed herself of a very obvious volume--one of the series of the Arabian Nights--and she brought it out into the portico and sat down with it in her lap.