H. And I another. But, indeed, I don’t want to talk, Selina.
S. You never do except when you are wished to be silent, and then your tongue goes like any race-horse.
H. Does it? Well, like Gilpin’s,
“It carries weight, it rides a race,
’Tis for a thousand pound!”
—and I only wish it were. Heigh-ho! If I could but earn a thousand pounds!
S. I’m sure she was as black as a chimney-sweep all to-day. Her pinafore had three rents in it, which she never thinks of mending, though I gave her needles and thread myself a week ago. She doesn’t know how to use them any more than a baby.
H. Possibly nobody ever taught her.
S. Yes, she went for a year to the National School, she says.
H. Well, her forte is certainly children. She is wonderfully patient with our troublesome scholars.