The Wonder by J.D. Beresford

Meanwhile a child of five -- all unconscious that his quiet refusal to participate in the making and breaking of reputations was temporarily a matter of considerable annoyance to a Fellow of the Royal Society -- ran through a well-kept index of the books in the library of Challis Court -- an index written clearly on cards that occupied a great nest of accessible drawers; two cards with a full description to each book, alphabetically arranged, one card under the title of the work and one under the author's name.

The child made no notes as he studied -- he never wrote a single line in all his life; but when a drawer of that delightful index had been searched, he would walk here and there among the three rooms at his disposal, and by the aid of the flight of framed steps that ran smoothly on rubber-tyred wheels, he would take down now and again some book or another until, returning to the table at last to read, he sat in an enceinte of piled volumes that had been collected round him.