To think of Margarita's estimating the value of a gift!
We had famous talks that August, while Roger sweated at his new task—making an island for us, no less!—and petite Marie gathered shells and buried them in tiny, wave-washed graves.
She took to reading that summer, and I read Pendennis and David Copperfield aloud and she embroidered great grey butterflies all over her grey gown for Faust, and the big brindled hound slept at our feet near the beehives.
"Which do you like best?" I asked her curiously.
"Oh, the one about Mr. Pendennis is the prettiest," she answered promptly, "I should have liked the man that made that book the best. But Mr. Dickens knows about more things. He makes more different kinds of people."
"Thackeray has been called cynical," I suggested.
"What is that, Jerry?"
I explained, and she shook her head.
"O no, that is not cynical. That is the way things are, Jerry. Only everybody does not say so."
"Do you think," I asked, "that people really talk the way Mr. Micawber talks? I never heard anybody. And certainly nobody ever talked like his wife."