“Eliza, you are always such a creature of the moment,” Mistress Yordas answered, indulgently; “you do love the good things of the world too much. How would you like to be out there, in a naked little cottage where the wind howls through, and the ewer is frozen every morning? And where, if you ever get anything to eat—”
“Philippa, I implore you not to be so dreadful. One never can utter the most commonplace reflection—and you know that I said I was sorry for the people.”
“My object is good, as you ought to know. My object is to habituate your mind—”
“Philippa, I beg you once more to confine your exertions, in that way, to your own more lofty mind. Again I refuse to have my mind, or whatever it is that does duty for it, habituated to anything. A gracious Providence knows that I should die outright, after all my blameless life, if reduced to those horrible straits you always picture. And I have too much faith in a gracious Providence to conceive for one moment that it would treat me so. I decline the subject. Why should we make such troubles? There is clear soup for dinner, and some lovely sweet-breads. Cook has got a new receipt for bread sauce, and Jordas says that he never did shoot such a woodcock.”
“Eliza, I trust that you may enjoy them all; your appetite is delicate, and you require nourishment. Why, what do I see over yonder in the snow? A slim figure moving at a very great pace, and avoiding the open places! Are my eyes growing old, or is it Lancelot?”
“Pet out in such weather, Philippa! Such a thing is simply impossible. Or at any rate I should hope so. You know that Jordas was obliged to put a set of curtains from end to end even of the bowling-alley, which is so beautifully sheltered; and even then poor Pet was sneezing. And you should have heard what he said to me, when I was afraid of the sheets taking fire from his warming-pan one night. Pet is unaccountable sometimes, I know. But the very last thing imaginable of him is that he should put his pretty feet into the snow.”
“You know him best, Eliza; and it is very puzzling to distinguish things in snow. But if it was not Pet, why, it must have been a squirrel.”
“The squirrels are gone to sleep for the winter, Philippa. I dare say it was only Jordas. Don't you think that it must have been Jordas?”
“I am quite certain that it was not Jordas. But I will not pretend to say that it was not a squirrel. He may forego his habitudes more easily than Lancelot.”
“How horribly dry you are sometimes, Philippa. There seems to be no softness in your nature. You are fit to do battle with fifty lawyers; and I pity Mr. Jellicorse, with his best clothes on.”