‘I don’t know that one ought to let talents rust,’ said Guy, thoughtfully; ‘I suppose it is one’s duty not; and surely it is a pity to give up those readings.’
‘I shall not get such another fellow dunce as you,’ said Charles, ‘as I told you when we began, and it would be a mere farce to do it alone. I could not make myself, if I would.’
‘Can’t you make yourself do what you please?’ said Guy, as if it was the simplest thing in the world.
‘Not a bit, if the other half of me does not like it. I forget it, or put it off, and it comes to nothing. I do declare, though, I would get something to break my mind on, merely as a medical precaution, just to freshen myself up, if I could find any one to do it with. No, nothing in the shape of a tutor, against that I protest.’
‘Your sisters,’ suggested Guy.
‘Hum’! Laura is too intellectual already, and I don’t mean to poach on Philip’s manor; and if I made little Amy cease to be silly, I should do away with all the comfort I have left me in life. I don’t know, though, if she swallowed learning after Mary Ross’s pattern, that it need do her much harm.’
Amy came into the room at the moment. ‘Amy, here is Guy advising me to take you to read something awfully wise every day, something that will make you as dry as a stick, and as blue—’
‘As a gentianella,’ said Guy.
‘I should not mind being like a gentianella,’ said Amy. ‘But what dreadful thing were you setting him to do?’
‘To make you read all the folios in my uncle’s old library,’ said Charles. ‘All that Margaret has in keeping against Philip has a house of his own.’