“Not at present,” said Matilda: “not till I am married. I shall enjoy doing as I like when I am married.”
“How the child’s head runs upon being married!” said Phoebe. “And to suppose that being ill is doing as one likes, of all odd things!”
“I should often like to fly all over the world,” said Mrs Enderby, “and to get anywhere out of this room—I am so tired of it: but I know I cannot: so I get books, and read about all the strange places, far off, that Mungo Park tells us about, and Gulliver, and Captain Parry. And I should often like to sleep at night when I cannot; and then I get up softly, without waking Phoebe, and look out at the bright stars, and think over all we are told about them—about their being all full of men and women. Did you know that, George?” asked she—George being now at the window.
“Oh, yes,” answered Matilda for him, “we know all about those things.”
“Are falling stars all full of men and women?” asked George.
“There were none on a star that my father saw fall on the Dingleford road,” observed Phoebe. “It wasn’t big enough to hold men and women.”
“Did it fall in the middle of the road?” asked George, turning from the window. “What was it like?”
“It was a round thing, as big as a house, and all bright and crystal like,” said Phoebe, with absolute confidence. “It blocked up the road from the great oak that you may remember, close by the second milestone, to the ditch on the opposite side.”
“Phoebe, are you sure of that?” asked Mrs Enderby, with a face full of anxious doubt.
“Ma’am, my father came straight home after seeing it fall, and he let my brother John and me go the next morning early, to bring home some of the splinters.”