Mrs. M. Oh, my dear, I don’t like to hear you call it so.
C. Yes, I know you care for it. You were bred up here, and know nothing better, poor old Mamsey, and pottering suits you exactly; but it is too much to ask me to sacrifice my wider fields of culture and usefulness.
Mrs. M. Grandpapa would enjoy nothing so much as reading with you. He said so.
C. Oxford half a century old and wearing off ever since. No, I thank you! Besides, it is not only physical science, but art.
Mrs. M. There’s the School of Art at Holbrook.
C. My dear mother, I am far past country schools of art!
Mrs. M. It is not as if you intended to take up art as a profession.
C. Mother! will nothing ever make you understand? Nothing ought to be half-studied, merely to pass away the time as an accomplishment (uttered with infinite scorn, accentuated on the second syllable), just to do things to sell at bazaars. No! Art with me means work worthy of exhibition, with a market-price, and founded on a thorough knowledge of the secrets of the human frame.
Mrs. M. Those classes! I don’t like all I hear of them, or their attendants.
C. If you will listen to all the gossip of all the old women of both sexes, I can’t help it! Can’t you trust to innocence and earnestness?