"She is all very well for a short time," he replied, "but really her tongue, to use rather a worn out simile, is like the clapper of a bell; always ringing."
"Do you think she talks too much?"
"Most decidedly I do."
"But you do not admire a silent woman," said Amy drawing near the fire, and placing Bertie on the hearth rug.
"More so than a very talkative one; but there is such a thing as a happy medium."
Amy sighed. "I wish we were back at Somerton," she said.
"Is my wife home-sick already? Would she not find it dull after Brampton?"
"I could not find it dull. Should I not have you—" she would have said all to myself, but checked herself and added—"you and Bertie."
"Why not have left out, Bertie?" he replied, "I shall grow jealous of that boy, Amy, if you always class us together. Can you not forget him sometimes?"
"Forget him? Oh! no, never!" said Amy, catching up the child, who immediately climbed from his mother's arms on to Robert's knee and remained there; while his father, notwithstanding his jealousy, glanced proudly at his boy, and caressed both him and his mother.