“So it is better to acquiesce till it subsides of itself. You see it is hard, after such a life of change and variety, to settle down into a country parsonage.”
“What are you saying there?” said Rosamond, tripping in out of breath.
“That I don’t know how you are to put up with a pink-eyed parson, and a hum-drum life,” said Julius, holding out a caressing hand.
“Now that’s hard,” pleaded she; “only because I took a frolic with Baby Charles! I say, Julius, shall we give it up altogether and stay at home like good children? I believe that is what would suit the told Rabbit much better than his kid gloves,”—and her sweet face looked up at him with a meek candid gaze.
“No,” he said, “that would not do. The Bowaters are our oldest friends. But, Rosie, as you are a clergyman’s wife, could you not give up round dances?”
“Oh no, no! That’s too bad. I’d rather never go to a dance at all, than sit still, or be elbowed about in the square dances. You never told me you expected that!”—and her tones were of a child petulant at injustice.
“Suppose,” he said, as a delightful solution, “you only gratified Frank and Charlie by waltzing with them.”
She burst into a ringing laugh. “My brothers-in-law! How very ridiculous! Suppose you included the curates?”
“You know what I mean,” he said gravely.
“Oh, bother the parson’s wife! Haven’t I seen them figuring away by scores? Did we ever have a regimental ball that they were not the keenest after?”