Eleanor H Porter

Miss Billy - Original Edition Eleanor H Porter

"And what next? They'd strike William's stratum next, the third floor. Imagine it! You know William as a State Street broker, well-off, a widower, tall, angular, slow of speech, a little bald, very much nearsighted, and the owner of the kindest heart in the world. But really to know William, you must know his rooms. William collects things. He has always collected things-and he's saved every one of them. There's a tradition that at the age of one year he crept into the house with four small round white stones. Anyhow, if he did, he's got them now. Rest assured of that-and he's forty this year. Miniatures, carved ivories, bugs, moths, porcelains, jades, stamps, postcards, spoons, baggage tags, theatre programs, playing-cards-there isn't anything that he doesn't collect. He's on teapots, now. Imagine it-William and teapots! And they're all there in his rooms-one glorious mass of confusion. Just fancy those archaeologists trying to make their 'monk' live there!