CHAPTER III.
Nothing comforted us so much whilst Mother and Chris were away as being allowed to play in the library.
We were not usually allowed to be there so often, but when we asked Father he gave us leave to amuse ourselves there at the time when Mother would have had us with her, provided that we did not bother him or hurt the books.

We did not hurt the books, and in the end we were allowed to go there as much as we liked.
We have plenty of books of our own, and we have new ones very often: on birthdays and at Christmas.

Sometimes they are interesting, and sometimes they are disappointing.

Most of them have pretty pictures.
It was because we had been rather unlucky for some time, and had had disappointing ones on our birthdays, that Arthur said to me, "Look here, Mary, I'm not going to read any books now but grown-up ones, unless it is an Adventure Book.

I'm sick of books for young people, there's so much _stuff_ in them." We call it _stuff_ when there seems to be going to be a story and it comes to nothing but talk; and we call it _stuff_ when there is a very interesting picture, and you read to see what it is about, and the reading does not tell you, or tells you wrong.
Both Arthur and Christopher had had disappointments in their books on their birthdays.
Arthur jumped at his book at first, because there were Japanese pictures in it, and Uncle Charley had just been staying with us, and had brought beautiful Japanese pictures with him, and had told us Japanese fairy tales, and they were as good as Bechstein.