The difficulty was, to find out what sort of spiritual drink would be most to her taste, and would most entice her to more.

There must be some seeds lying cold and hard in her uncultured garden; what water would soonest make them grow?
Not all the waters of Damascus will turn mere sand sifted of eternal winds into fruitful soil; but Letty's soul could not be such.

And then literature has seed to sow as well as water for the seed sown.

Letty's foolish words about the hands that wrote poetry showed a shadow of respect for poetry--except, indeed, the girl had been but making game of him, which he was far from ready to believe, and for which, he said to himself, her face was at the time much too earnest, and her hands much too busy; he must find out whether she had any instincts, any predilections, in the matter of poetry! Thus pondering, he forgot all about his projected ride, and, going up to the study he had contrived for himself in the rambling roof of the ancient house, began looking along the backs of his books, in search of some suggestion of how to approach Letty; his glance fell on a beautifully bound volume of verse--a selection of English lyrics, made with tolerable judgment--which he had bought to give, but the very color of which, every time his eye flitting along the book-shelves caught it, threw a faint sickness over his heart, preluding the memory of old pain and loss: "It may as well serve some one," he said, and, taking it down, carried it with him to the saddle-room.
Letty was not there, and the perfect order of the place somehow made him feel she had been gone some time.

He went in search of her; she might be in the dairy.
That was the very picture of an old-fashioned English dairy--green-shadowy, dark, dank, and cool--floored with great irregular slabs, mostly of green serpentine, polished into smooth hollows by the feet of generations of mistresses and dairy-maids.