‘That must be a great load off your mind.’
‘Indeed it is, though the children must still chiefly look to me. I should like to have little George at a good school. However, now their immediate maintenance is off my hands, I have more to spend in educating myself. I can get evening lessons now, when my day’s work is over.’
‘Oh! do not overstrain your head,’ said Phœbe, thinking of Bertha.
‘Heads can bear a good deal when they are full of hope,’ he said, smiling.
‘Still after your out-of-doors life of bodily exercise, do you not find it hard to be always shut up in London?’
‘Perhaps the novelty has not worn off. It is as if life had only begun since I came into the city.’
‘A new set of faculties called into play?’
‘Faculties—yes, and everything else.’
‘I must go now, or my sisters will be waiting for me, and I see your dinner coming in. Good-bye.’
‘May I come to see you?’