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door in the inner wall of his office and came back a moment later, beckoning to her.
    “Philip is here and wants to meet you,” Nat said. McLeod followed him through another paneled room lined with bookshelves, into still a third book-lined room with two desks. A white-haired, beaked-nosed man in a pin-striped suit rose from behind the big desk and smiled at McLeod. He had the rosy cheeks of old age, but he was tall and straight. McLeod thought he must have been blond before his hair turned gray because aside from the rosy cheeks, his skin was pale and his eyes were blue.
    “McLeod, this is Philip Sheridan,” said Nat. “He’s a great collector. And this is McLeod Dulaney—I told you about her. She’s a real Trollope fan.”
    “I’m glad to hear that,” said Sheridan. “I’m a Trollopian, too.” He came around from behind the desk to shake hands. “This is Chester”—he waved at the young man at the smaller desk—“my assistant and the curator of the collection.” Chester stood up and smiled shyly. “Do sit down, Mrs. Dulaney,” Sheridan said. He ushered her to a large wing chair, and pointed to a smaller chair for Nat. “Which is your favorite Trollope?”
    “I used to think it was the Parliamentary novels—all of them,” said McLeod. “But I’m reading The Vicar of Bullhampton now and it’s wonderful. I believe it’s my all-time favorite. I really do.”
    “Oh, yes, that’s the one where the vicar tries to rescue the ‘fallen woman,’ ” said Sheridan.
    “That’s right. And there are all these plots and subplots —the love affair between the squire and Mary, the murder of the farmer—it’s wonderful.”
    “What edition are you reading?”
    “What edition? Oh, you’re a book collector, so you care about the edition. It’s just a paperback I bought secondhand at Micawber.”
    “I see. Then you’re not interested in books except for their content?”
    “Some books are quite beautiful—I appreciate that. But I guess I do care mostly about the content. I wish I knew more about books as books. Are you interested only in first editions?”
    “I wouldn’t say that. Some first editions are unobtainable. Shakespeare’s quartos, for instance, are no longer in private hands. But a first edition makes you feel closer to the author.”
    “And a manuscript still closer?” said McLeod.
    “Exactly. And you want to see a manuscript.” He spoke to the young man at the smaller desk. “Chester, would you fetch the manuscript of The Eustace Diamonds, please.”
    “Oh, good, that’s one of the Parliamentary novels,” said McLeod. “I love them, because I covered the legislature in Florida and that gave me a taste of the parliamentary process.”
    Chester disappeared through still another door and returned to lay a gray carton gently on the big desk. Sheridan moved the carton to a small table that he pulled up in front of McLeod’s chair. He opened the carton and looked tenderly at its contents. McLeod stood up as Sheridan lifted another box, this one dark leather, out of the carton; he opened the leather box, slid out the manuscript, and laid it in front of her. It was an enormous pile of paper, at least three inches thick. She lifted the first page—good, heavy, slightly textured ivory-colored paper, on which Trollope had written the novel’s title, The Eustace Diamonds, and below it, “Chapter 1.”
    The rest of the page—both sides—was covered with Trollope’s handwriting in brown ink. McLeod sighed in admiration. She knew that Trollope had written ten pages a day, relentlessly, two hundred and fifty words to the page, none of it ever rewritten and all of it fully legible a hundred and thirty years later, with only an occasional word crossed out, an ink blot here and there, a smudge now and then.
    She admired the manuscript silently and then looked up, smiled at Philip Sheridan, and said, “I find it strangely moving. Thank you so much. It’s an amazing experience—to look