"Hush, my dear, hush! I am not very clever, but I have learned one thing,—never to leave a certain duty for an uncertain one. It is a safe rule; you will find it so, Cathy. I often think of my children, and long to be back with them; but nothing would induce me to leave Cara while she wants me."
There was a slight lull in the conversation, and Miss Faith's voice dropped to a whisper. A fresh wind blew over the wide moor. Some black-faced mountain sheep browsed among the heather; one of them had strayed on to the line, and the little engine slackened speed. The wild, somewhat barren scenery, the novel mode of traffic, the sweet moorland air, charmed and exhilarated Queenie; she squeezed Emmie's hand as she whispered to her, "Don't you love Miss Faith?" "Faith waiting on Charity," she said to herself with a little sigh.
The quarry was in sight by this time. Trucks of the blasted stones were being shunted hither and thither; then came the work-sheds and ponderous machinery. Queenie followed the others, as Garth led them from one point to another. She listened as breathlessly as Emmie to his description of the blasting; she tried to imagine the vast report echoing over those lonely moors, the terrified sheep huddled far away in heaps, the masses of fallen rocks, and then started a little as she found Garth looking down at her with earnest eyes.
"All this is new to you, a fresh experience. You have not hewn lessons out of rocks all your life long, as I have," observed the young man sententiously.
"No," she answered a little timidly; "but then I am only a governess."
"That means a bookworm. Are you very learned, Miss Marriott? I wonder you have not frightened Langley. Rocks and men have been my books," continued Garth, waving his hand at the rough cliff half torn down, but wearing graceful fronds of ferns in its crevices. "There are hard durable lessons to be learnt here: how to overcome difficulties, how to war with opposition. I would rather be here among my quarrymen than on the benches of the House of Commons."
Queenie gave a swift upward glance, but did not answer. "A king among men," she was saying to herself softly.
"You cannot think how I pity business men in cities," Garth went on, as he walked beside her. "Boys fresh from school chained for the best part of their lives to the desk; cramped up in a close atmosphere, bringing all their best energies, their choicest talents, down to the level of dull routine,—money-getting, money-loving,—-narrowed to a perfect machinery of existence."
"I think you are a little unjust and prejudiced there," replied Queenie, with some spirit; "you may love your life best, and I dare say you are right. You have freedom and rule, two very good things."
"And plenty of fresh air," put in Garth, baring his head as he spoke to the sweet moorland wind that met them.