He had not been gone a week when Mrs Forbes's invitations re-commenced;
and, as if to make up for the neglect of the summer, they were more
frequent than before. No time was so happy for Annie as the time she
spent with her. She never dreamed of accusing her of fickleness or
unevenness, but received whatever kindness she offered with gratitude.
And, this winter, she began to make some return in the way of household
assistance.
One day, while searching in the lumber-room for something for Mrs
Forbes, she came upon a little book lying behind a box. It was damp and
swollen and mouldy, and the binding was decayed and broken. The inside
was dingy and spotted with brown spots, and had too many ???'s in it, as
she thought. Yet the first glance fascinated her. It had opened in the
middle of _L'Allegro_. Mrs Forbes found her standing spell-bound,
reading the rhymed poems of the man whose blank-verse, two years
before, she had declined as not what poetry ought to be. I have often
seen a child refuse his food, and, after being compelled to eat one
mouthful, gladly devour the whole. In like manner Annie, having once
tasted Milton's poetry, did not let it go till she had devoured even
the _Paradise Lost_, of which when she could not make sense, she at
least made music???the chords of old John Milton's organ sounding through
his son's poetry in the brain of a little Scotch lassie who never heard
an organ in her life.
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