‘What, you pretend to deny? You won’t put me off that way. A lady who can only unbend so far as to the English Constitution by way of recreation, must—’
‘But it is not by way of recreation.’
‘Come, I know my respected cousin too well to imagine she would have imposed such a task. That won’t do, Phœbe.’
‘I never said she had, but Miss Fennimore desired me.’
‘I shall appeal. There’s no act of tyranny a woman in authority will not commit. But this is a free country, Phœbe, as maybe you have gathered from your author, and unless her trammels have reached to your soul—’ and he laid his hand on the book to take it away.
‘Perhaps they have,’ said Phœbe, smiling, but holding it fast, ‘for I shall be much more comfortable in doing as I was told.’
‘Indeed!’ said Owen, pretending to scrutinize her as if she
were something extraordinary (really as an excuse for a good gaze upon her pure complexion and limpid eyes, so steady, childlike, and unabashed, free from all such consciousness as would make them shrink from the playful look). ‘Indeed! Now, in my experience the comfort would be in the not doing as you were told.’
‘Ah! but you know I have no spirit.’
‘I wish to heaven other people had none!’ cried Owen, suddenly changing his tone, and sitting down opposite to Phœbe, his elbow on the table, and speaking earnestly. ‘I would give the world that my sister were like you. Did you ever hear of anything so preposterous as this Irish business?’