“Yes, I will, with pleasure,” replied I, laughing. “We will pass the evening better than making love, after all, especially if you hit so hard. How came you so knowing in those matters?”
“I don’t know,” replied Mary, smiling; “I suppose, as father says, it’s human nature, for I never learnt anything; but you will teach me to read and write?”
“I will teach you all I know myself, Mary, if you wish to learn. Everything but Latin—we’ve had enough of that.”
“Oh! I shall be so much obliged to you. I shall love you so!”
“There you are again.”
“No, no, I didn’t mean that,” replied Mary, earnestly. “I meant that—after all, I don’t know what else to say. I mean that I shall love you for your kindness, without your loving me again, that’s it.”
“I understand you; but now, Mary, as we are to be such good friends, it is necessary that your father and I should be good friends; so I must ask you what sort of a person he is, for I know but little of him, and, of course, wish to oblige him.”
“Well then, to prove to you that I’m sincere, I will tell you something; My father, in the first place, is a very good tempered sort of man. He works pretty well, but might gain more, but he likes to smoke at the public-house. All he requires of me is his dinner ready, his linen clean, and the house tidy. He never drinks too much, and is always civil spoken; but he leaves me too much alone, and talks too much about human nature, that’s all.”
“But he’s so deaf—he can’t talk to you.”
“Give me your hand—now promise—for I’m going to do a very foolish thing, which is to trust a man—promise you’ll never tell it again.”