Katy, who had "browsed" all through her childhood in a good
old-fashioned library, had her memory stuffed with all manner of little
scraps of information and literary allusions, which now came into use.
It was like owning the disjointed bits of a puzzle, and suddenly
discovering that properly put together they make a pattern. Mrs. Ashe,
who had never been much of a reader, considered her young friend a
prodigy of intelligence; but Katy herself realized how inadequate and
inexact her knowledge was, and how many bits were missing from the
pattern of her puzzle. She wished with all her heart, as every one
wishes under such circumstances, that she had studied harder and more
wisely while the chance was in her power. On a journey you cannot read
to advantage. Remember that, dear girls, who are looking forward to
travelling some day, and be industrious in time.
October is not a favorable month in which to see England. Water, water
is everywhere; you breathe it, you absorb it; it wets your clothes and
it dampens your spirits. Mrs. Ashe's friends advised her not to think of
Scotland at that time of the year. One by one their little intended
excursions were given up. A single day and night in Oxford and
Stratford-on-Avon; a short visit to the Isle of Wight, where, in a
country-place which seemed provokingly pretty as far as they could see
it for the rain, lived that friend of Mrs. Ashe who had married an
Englishman and in so doing had, as Katy privately thought, "renounced
the sun;" a peep at Stonehenge from under the shelter of an umbrella,
and an hour or two in Salisbury Cathedral,--was all that they
accomplished, except a brief halt at Winchester, that Katy might have
the privilege of seeing the grave of her beloved Miss Austen.
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