There were light, airy, movable steps, so as to reach to the topmost shelves, and there I loved to poise myself, like a bird on the spray, peeping into this book and that, gathering here and there a golden grain or sweet scented flower for the garner of thought, or the bower of imagination.
There were statues in niches made to receive them,--the gods and goddesses of Greece and Rome, in their cold, severe beauty, all passionless and pure, in spite of the glowing mythology that called them into existence.

There were paintings, too, that became a part of my being, I took them in with such intense, gazing eyes.

Indeed, the house was lined with them.

I could not walk through a room without stopping to admire some work of genius, some masterpiece of art.
I over-heard Dr.Harlowe say to Mrs.Linwood, that it was a pity I were not at school, I was so very young.

As if I were not at school all the time! As if those grand old books were not teachers; those breathing statues, those gorgeous paintings were not teachers; as if the noble edifice itself, with its magnificent surroundings, the billowy heave of the distant mountains, the glimpses of the sublime sea, the fair expanse of the beautiful valley, were not teachers! Oh! they little knew what lessons I was learning.