The gold-rimmed spectacles make a hasty descent from their elevation upon Mrs. Brandon's high thin nose.
"Dear Bob! why not?"
"Because I don't see why I should," he answers, frankly. "I'm perfectly well: why should I shirk work any more than any other fellow? I might say that I prefer a cool climate to a hot vapour-bath, English winds to oily calms, but I don't suppose that I am singular in that!"
"My dear boy!" says the old woman, tremulously, stretching out her withered hand across the table to him,—"why did you ever go into that dreadful profession? Why did not you enter the ministry, like your dear father, as I so much wished you to do?"
"I'm very glad I didn't, mother!" replies the young man, bluntly; "I should have been a fish sadly out of water, and, after all, I hope that Heaven will not be quite so full of black coats that there will not be room for one or two of our colour."
"Have you told Essie?" inquires his eldest sister, joining in the conversation.
"Yes, she knows."
"Will she be ready to go with you on such short notice?"
"No."
"You'll leave her behind, then?"