'Yes,' said Felix, 'this is just the time that all the old gentlemen who get tired of their own fire-sides, and all the professionals that can't take their walk, feel inclined to come and prose at "Froggatt's."—But they won't want you, Lance; I'll send if there's anything for you to do.—Good-bye, Robin Redbreast, you do look uncommonly nice!' and he took her round cheeks between his hands, and held up her face to kiss each of them, with mouth and brow, individually and gravely.
'She's the Robin still,' said Cherry, 'only just a little polished up.'
'Developing,' said Lance, stalking round her, and speaking his words deliberately; 'developing—into—the—bloom—of—sweet—seventeen—and of—'
'Not beauty!' broke in Robina. 'I would not be as pretty as Wilmet for two-pence.'
'Not for a major?' suggested Lance.
'He didn't marry her for her beauty,' vehemently responded Robina, 'but for her—her niceness. Her beauty has been always in her way, and a nuisance to her, and—'
'Sour grapes!' quoth Lance.
'Not a bit. It would be a worse hindrance in my branch of the profession.'
Lance did not answer in jest this time; he looked at the bright pleasant-faced girl in her maidenly bloom and fresh stylish dress, and said, 'What a horrid pity it is! she looks ten times more of a lady than ninety-nine out of a hundred of 'em—and there she's to go and grind and be ground just for a governess.'
'Not a bit more of a pity than that—I'll not say that you should be a printer, Lance, but than that anybody should be anything. I learnt my Catechism, you see, to learn and labour to get my own living.'