"I call it a sinful way. A sinful waste of time."
"Oh, Mr. Boult! But it is only stupid, uncultured people who don't read."
"I read my newspaper every day," he said, as if she had accused him. "It is all that business people have time for."
"I'm so glad I'm not a business person, then."
"You never will be! One of the idle ones of the earth, Miss Bessie. Those that toil not neither do they spin."
"A lily of the field," Bessie reminded him.
"I have told you before, a fine, healthy young woman like you has no right to be sitting over the fire in idleness."
"What do you suggest I should do?"
"Go down and wait in the shop. Why not? If you would do so your mother could get rid of Pretty."
Bessie turned on him a face flushed with anger: "I will never wait in the shop," she said. "I hate the shop. I hate all shops, except to spend money in."