He looked up and round him as he spoke, with a brighter expression on his face than she had as yet seen, and Nell regarded him with a sudden interest.
"How much you have traveled!" she said—"that mackerel wants turning; raise the pan so that the butter can run under the fish; that's it—and how much you must have seen! Italy, Egypt, Porto Rico—where is that? Oh, I remember! How delightful to have seen so much! You must be a very fortunate individual!"
She leaned her chin in her brown, shapely hands, and looked at him curiously, and with a frank envy in her gray eyes.
His face clouded for a moment.
"Count no man fortunate until he is dead!" he said, adapting the aphorism. "Believe me that I'd change places with you at this moment, and throw in all my experiences."
She laughed incredulously.
"With me? Oh, you can't mean it. It is very flattering, of course; but it's absurd. Why"—she paused and sighed—"I've never been anywhere, or seen anything. I've never been to London even, since I was quite a little girl, and——Change places with me!" She laughed again, just a little sadly. "Yes, it does sound absurd. For one thing, you wouldn't like to be poor; and we are poor, you know."
"Poor and content is rich enough," he remarked sententiously. Then he laughed. "I'm as good as a copy book with moral headings this morning."
Nell smiled.
"I think that is nonsense, like most copy-book headings. And yet——Yes, I should be content enough if it were not for Dick. After all, one can be happy though one is poor, especially if one lives in a beautiful place like Shorne Mills, and has a boat to sail in the summer, and books in the winter, and knows all the people round, and——"