"How absurd! As if children of that age could teach a clever man like you anything!"
"But I expect them to teach me everything, Annabel; everything that I've been too stupid and idle and lethargic to learn for myself."
The afterglow of Annabel's indulgent smile still lingered. "You do talk a lot of nonsense, Reggie!"
"What is nonsense to you is sense to me, and vice versa," I explained. "To me you appear to be uttering balderdash when you talk about the G.F.S. and the S.P.G., and the S.P.C.K., and seams, and stitches, and purling, and running, and felling; but to you these cabalistic signs embody the wisdom of the ages. And in the same way my wisdom is foolishness to you."
"I wish you'd look over Green's bill for seeds this spring," said Annabel, foraging among her letters and throwing a rather dirty envelope at me; "I think he has charged too much for the new sweet peas I ordered."
I was not surprised at Annabel's sudden change of subject. I was accustomed to these alarms and excursions in her improving conversation. So I obediently raised the nurseryman's bill close to my short-sighted eyes. But before I had time to examine it, she began again: "It is very foolish of you to try your eyes in that way, Reggie! You really ought to wear glasses."
"I dislike wearing glasses."
"That's neither here nor there—what you like or dislike."
"Yes, it is, it's most decidedly here. If—like Cardinal Newman—'I do not ask to see the distant scene,' why, my dear Annabel, should you intrude it upon my notice?"
"It's simply vanity on your part; absurd vanity! You are so proud of the Winterford eyes that you don't like to hide them with glasses."