Bill protested in favour of 'a real one,' but without much effect. Was not the sixpence yielding at last? and had she not that precious bird's-nest, which she had not dared to wear during his displeasure, unwitting that this grieved him the more? They were very earnest over the old-fashioned ceremony of the sixpence; they scratched a W and an R on each moiety, and made a hole, and Robina undertook the finding a cord for each. It was playfully done, but with great depth beneath.
'It has been the homely token of a great deal of simple trust!' said Will.
'And I am sure we are poor enough!' added Robina.
'But you will never go back to that abominable harness?'
'Indeed I must! No, Will! Cannot you see how wrong and foolish it would be to be living on Felix, with nothing to do, and no one wanting me?'
'No one?'
'Cherry is all the world to Felix, and teaches Stella. Angela takes the parish work; and it would be a sin and shame to waste my education in dawdling here. Even dear old Lancey is too much taken up with his music to want me to keep house for him. I should only be in his way; and I do not want to enter on all the questions about society there!'
'No; Bexley would not do for you!'
'And when I am getting one hundred pounds now, and am to have one hundred and fifty after Christmas, when Miss Oswald goes, would it not be sheer waste and laziness to come and prey on Felix, when I might be earning a nice little nest-egg to furnish our house with?'
'That's to coax me; but I can't stand your working for me!'