Mr. Carleton looked again silently at the child, who had given him these pieces of information with a singular grave propriety of manner, and even as it were reluctantly.
"And what do you read, Fairy?" he said after a minute;--"stories of fairy-land?"
"No," said Fleda, "I haven't any. We haven't a great many books--there are only a few up in the cupboard, and the Encyclopædia; father had some books, but they are locked up in a chest. But there is a great deal in the Encyclopædia."
"The Encyclopædia!" said Mr. Carleton;--"what do you read in that? what can you find to like there?"
"I like all about the insects, and birds and animals; and about flowers,--and lives of people, and curious things. There are a great many in it."
"And what are the other books in the cupboard, which you read?"
"There's Quentin Durward," said Fleda,--"and Rob Roy, and Guy Mannering in two little bits of volumes; and the Knickerbocker, and the Christian's Magazine, and an odd volume of Redgauntlet, and the Beauties of Scotland."
"And have you read all these, Miss Fleda?" said her companion, commanding his countenance with difficulty.
"I haven't read quite all of the Christian's Magazine, nor all of the Beauties of Scotland."
"All the rest?"