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some picture books for you to look at. Come and sit on my
lap, and we’ll look at them together.’
Philip slipped off his chair and limped over to her. He
looked down so that she should not see his eyes. She put her
arms round him.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘that’s the place where our blessed Lord
was born.’
She showed him an Eastern town with flat roofs and
cupolas and minarets. In the foreground was a group of
palm-trees, and under them were resting two Arabs and
some camels. Philip passed his hand over the picture as if
he wanted to feel the houses and the loose habiliments of
the nomads.
‘Read what it says,’ he asked.
Mrs. Carey in her even voice read the opposite page. It
was a romantic narrative of some Eastern traveller of the
thirties, pompous maybe, but fragrant with the emotion
with which the East came to the generation that followed
Byron and Chateaubriand. In a moment or two Philip in-
terrupted her.
‘I want to see another picture.’
When Mary Ann came in and Mrs. Carey rose to help
her lay the cloth. Philip took the book in his hands and hur-
ried through the illustrations. It was with difficulty that
his aunt induced him to put the book down for tea. He had
forgotten his horrible struggle to get the collect by heart;
he had forgotten his tears. Next day it was raining, and he
asked for the book again. Mrs. Carey gave it him joyful-
ly. Talking over his future with her husband she had found