“You want that boy!” said her husband in a dazed manner. “What do you mean?”
“Just exactly what I say,” she replied with great composure. “I want him to come here. His nurse has heard of a good situation, and it is too bad to keep her on there living with him when they have so little money.”
Her husband sat down to the table, and began to carve the steak. “Bess,” he said remonstratingly, “you couldn’t get him here—that little thoroughbred, proud fellow. He looks down on us.”
“Why does he look down on us?” asked Mrs. Hardy.
“Well, I guess he thinks we don’t belong to the aristocracy.”
“Aren’t you as good a man as there is in this city?” asked Mrs. Hardy earnestly.
“I shouldn’t wonder if I am,” said the sergeant with great complacency, “though I might be better than I am. But, Bess, you don’t understand.”
“I understand this much,” she said. “Here is a lonely child in a big city, without a soul but a poor ignorant nurse to look after him. If you take him by force, and put him somewhere where he doesn’t want to go, he’ll pine to death. If we can coax him here, and make him happy till something is arranged”—
“That’s all very fine,” said the sergeant; “I see what you’re after, Bess. You’ve taken a great fancy to that boy. You’ll get him here, and fall to petting him; then, when he’s sent for to go to France, you’ll break your heart.”