"It makes me long to travel, Miss Helstone."
"When you are a woman, perhaps, you may be able to gratify your wish."
"I mean to make a way to do so, if one is not made for me. I cannot live always in Briarfield. The whole world is not very large compared with creation. I must see the outside of our own round planet, at least."
"How much of its outside?"
"First this hemisphere where we live; then the other. I am resolved that my life shall be a life. Not a black trance like the toad's, buried in marble; nor a long, slow death like yours in Briarfield rectory."
"Like mine! what can you mean, child?"
"Might you not as well be tediously dying as for ever shut up in that glebe-house—a place that, when I pass it, always reminds me of a windowed grave? I never see any movement about the door. I never hear a sound from the wall. I believe smoke never issues from the chimneys. What do you do there?"
"I sew, I read, I learn lessons."
"Are you happy?"
"Should I be happy wandering alone in strange countries as you wish to do?"