'I might as well say I can't stand your working for me, you silly fellow! You don't see me crying at your keeping pupils at Penbeacon.'
'Yes, but I'm the right one!'
'I declare you've been learning of my godmothers, who say it is unworthy of a man to let his womankind work. A regular Mahometan notion, isn't it? And I shall get my holidays whenever you are available. Don't you see?'
'I see it exactly in Miss Hepburn's light. Men must work!'
'And women weep! Eh? I've no intention of weeping! I much prefer working, and I do no more than is wholesome for any person's well-being. I believe it is Green-eyes again?'
'No; I'm not afraid of you, my own, own steady-hearted Bird! I never would have been, had I known whether you viewed that evening walk as play or earnest. I've done with that sort of trouble; but I should like to lift you out of all the drudgery of work-a-day life, and give you all that heart could wish!'
'The heart of a bird of paradise!' said she, looking into his face; 'the heart of a robin red-breast gets much nearer what it wishes when it is working—working for you, you know! Ay! that's so sweet, that you want to get it all for yourself!'
'My sweetest Bird! before you have talked me quite out of my senses, with your poetical way of putting it, let me say that you and I don't work on equal terms. There's the rub!'
'Oh! You're ashamed of the governess?'
'No indeed, dearest; but that you—you—equal to any in birth—should be in an inferior position!'