William Bouguereau Evening Mood painting

surroundings--Miss Cornelia and Captain Jim would scarcely have recognized her; Anne found it hard to believe that this was the cold, unresponsive woman she had met on the shore--this animated girl who talked and listened with the eagerness of a starved soul. And how hungrily Leslie's eyes looked at the bookcases between the windows!
"Our library isn't very extensive," said Anne, "but every book in it is a friend. We've picked our books up through the years, here and there, never buying one until we had first read it and knew that it belonged to the race of Joseph."
Leslie laughed--beautiful laughter that seemed akin to all the mirth that had echoed through the little house in the vanished years.
"I have a few books of father's--not many," she said. "I've read them until I know them almost by heart. I don't get many books. There's a circulating library at the Glen store--but I don't think the committee who pick the books for Mr. Parker know what books are of Joseph's race--or perhaps they don't care. It was so seldom I got one I really liked that I gave up getting any."