The text was illustrated by frequent pictures, in which the villain generally had his hands on the heroine's throat, while the hero was bursting in through a graceful drapery to the rescue of his beloved.

If a bundle came into the house wrapped in a stained old newspaper, I laboriously smoothed out the paper and read it through.

I enjoyed it all, and found fault with nothing that I read.

And, as in the case of the Vitebsk readings, I cannot find that I suffered any harm.

Of course, reading so many better books, there came a time when the diamond-ring story paper disgusted me; but in the beginning my appetite for print was so enormous that I could let nothing pass through my hands unread, while my taste was so crude that nothing printed could offend me.
Good reading matter came into the house from one other source besides the library.