"Hollo! why I thought it was settled long ago that you were to live at the Quarry with them."
"So it was; but I don't know whether I am not more wanted here than there."
"You don't mean that that have changed their mind, and don't want to have you?"
"Not a bit—O dear, no! but I think, somehow, Clara and Lionel find me of more use than they would."
"To be sure, this place would be in a pretty tolerable sort of a mess without you. I don't know how any of them would get on."
"Well, then, I wanted your opinion, Gerald; I had better tell Edmund and
Agnes that I ought to stay on here."
"But what am I to do? I mean to be at Fern Torr in the holidays, I assure you, except a week or two, just to see Lionel; and I don't mean to have my holidays without you, I declare!"
"O, I hope always to come home for them."
"Why, then, if I have you when I am at home, I don't care,—I mean—" said Gerald, conscious of the egotism he was committing, "I mean you don't like it half so well, do you?"
"O no—I mean—I don't know—"