“Do be serious and listen, Jack! I want to speak in earnest myself now.”
“Well, I’ll listen till the ladder moves again, not a minute longer.”
“Jack,” resumed Harry, “I need not pretend that I do not love Nell; I wish above all things to make her my wife.”
“That’s all right!”
“But for the present I have scruples of conscience as to asking her to make me a promise which would be irrevocable.”
“What can you mean, Harry?”
“I mean just this—that, it being certain Nell has never been outside this coal mine in the very depths of which she was born, it stands to reason that she knows nothing, and can comprehend nothing of what exists beyond it. Her eyes—yes, and perhaps also her heart—have everything yet to learn. Who can tell what her thoughts will be, when perfectly new impressions shall be made upon her mind? As yet she knows nothing of the world, and to me it would seem like deceiving her, if I led her to decide in ignorance, upon choosing to remain all her life in the coal mine. Do you understand me, Jack?”
“Hem!—yes—pretty well. What I understand best is that you are going to make me miss another turn of the ladder.”
“Jack,” replied Harry gravely, “if this machinery were to stop altogether, if this landing-place were to fall beneath our feet, you must and shall hear what I have to say.”
“Well done, Harry! that’s how I like to be spoken to! Let’s settle, then, that, before you marry Nell, she shall go to school in Auld Reekie.”