"I mean, my _other_ home." "Humph!" grunted Father.

Then, after a minute: "But why, pray, can't you read here?
I'm sure there are--books enough." He flourished his hands toward the bookcases all around the room.
"Oh, I do--a little; but, you see, I'm so afraid I'll leave some of them out when I'm through," I explained, "Well, what of it?
What if you do ?" he demanded.
"Why, _Father_!" I tried to show by the way I said it that he knew--of course he knew.

But he made me tell him right out that Aunt Jane wouldn't like it, and that he wouldn't like it, and that the books always had to be kept exactly where they belonged.
"Well, why not?
Why shouldn't they ?" he asked then, almost crossly, and hitching again in his chair.

"Aren't books down there--in Boston--kept where they belong, pray ?" It was the first time since I'd come that he'd ever mentioned Boston; and I almost jumped out of my chair when I heard him.

But I soon saw it wasn't going to be the last, for right then and there he began to question me, even worse than Aunt Jane had.
He wanted to know everything, _everything_; all about the house, with its cushions and cozy corners and curtains 'way up, and books left around easy to get, and magazines, and Baby Lester, and the fun we had romping with him, and everything.