"At present I do not see that there is," confessed Jane.
"There! Then is it waste of time, or not, my continuing to study for a career which I can never enter upon?"
"But what else can you do, Robert?" interposed Mrs. Tait. "You cannot idle your time away at home, or be running about the streets all day."
"No," said Robert, "better stop at school for ever than do that. I want to see the world, mother."
"You—want—to—see—the—world!" echoed Mrs. Tait, bringing out the words slowly in her astonishment, whilst Jane looked up from her work, and fixed her eyes upon her brother.
"It's only natural that I should," said Robert, with equanimity. "I have an invitation to go down into Yorkshire."
"What to do?" cried Mrs. Tait.
"Oh, lots of things. They keep hunters, and——"
"Why, you were never on horseback in your life, Robert," laughed Jane. "You would come back with your neck broken."
"I do wish you'd be quiet, Jane!" returned Robert, reddening. "I am talking to mamma, not to you. Winchcombe has invited me to spend the Christmas holidays with him down at his father's place in Yorkshire. And, mother, I want to go; and I want you to promise that I shall not return to school when the holidays are over. I will do anything else that you choose to put me to. I'll learn to be a man of business, or I'll go into an office, or I'd be apprenticed to a doctor—anything you like, rather than stop at these everlasting school-books. I am sick of them."