"Only me. Did I trouble you?"
"Oh no; was I not troubling you?"
"How, my dear?"
Christian could not tell. Anyhow she found it impossible to explain, except that she had fancied he did not care for music.
"Perhaps I do, perhaps I don't. But I care for you. Tell me," he sat down and took her hand, "does not Arthur's 'bird' sometimes feel a little like a bird in a cage? Do you not wish you lived in the world—in London, where you could go to concerts and balls, instead of being shut up in a dull college with an old bookworm like me?"
"Dr. Grey! Papa!"
"Don't look hurt, my darling. But confess; isn't it sometimes so?"
"No! a thousand times no! Who has been putting such things into your head, for they never would come of themselves? It is wicked—wicked, and you should not heed them."
The tears burst from her eyes, to her husband's undisguised astonishment. He appeared so exceedingly grieved that she controlled herself as soon as she could, for his sake.
"I did not mean to be naughty. But you should remember I am still only a girl—a poor, helpless, half-formed girl, who never had any body to teach her any thing, who is trying so hard to be good, only they will not let me!"