"Your uncle would have built one long ago if there really had been clay. I must look at the place he means. I cannot remember any such place. And it is unlikely that it should be as he says. Pray do not agree to any propositions of the kind hastily."
"It would cost heaps to set it going, wouldn't it?"
"Yes, and probably bring in nothing at all."
"But he tries to make out that it would be quite cheap. He says the timber could all be got out of the forest. I can't bear the thought of cutting down a lot of trees."
"If you can't bear the thought of anything he proposes, then simply refuse to consider it."
"But he talks and talks till it really seems that he is right. He told me just now that it would double the value of the estate."
"I don't believe it."
"If I made bricks, according to him I could take in twice as many poor ladies."
"I believe you will be happier with fewer ladies and no bricks," said Axel with great positiveness.
Anna stood thinking. Her eyes were fixed on the tip of the finger she had passed through the loop of string that tied the letters together, and she watched it as the packet twisted round and round and pinched it redder and redder. "I suppose you never wanted to be a woman," she said, considering this phenomenon with apparent interest.