'Certainly not,' said Will, smiling, 'especially as this conviction of yours leads you in the very direction I wish, and will cure itself.'
'I know him so little,' added Robina, in excuse for herself, as she saw how she had wounded Will's enthusiastic admiration of the very qualities in which he felt himself the most deficient. 'You know I have never spent three months together at home since I was seven years old, so it is full time I learnt home-life.'
'To be domesticated,' said Will; 'but look here—why should not I go in for the curacy, and then——'
'That's the way I am to devote myself to Cherry, eh? No, Bill, we must be all the more staunch. Mind, the question is not whether you and I can be content in poverty, but whether we will be a drag on our brothers, and you a less efficient clergyman. Recollect my father.'
'I only recollect worn-out Dons.'
'Dons minus brains! You always wanted to do it all, and now you have your way. Two years more, and I really think we shall do!' (For Robina kept the account of the investments.)
'You miser! At least I shall know you are safe here, and of that I am heartily glad. I never could forgive the Repworth folk for being your masters.'
'Very ungrateful!' said Robina. 'I don't know how to think of not going back to my dear little girls, and their mother!'—and tears came to her eyes, for she could not but feel that home had lost all its brightness and much of its sweetness.
'I think,' said Bill, musingly, 'it is wonderful how, with such a set of strong wills as you Underwoods have, you should have all preserved such perfect union.'
'Have we such strong wills?'