Eve shrugged her shoulders.
‘Revenons à nos moutons,’ she said, ‘though I cannot say old Coyshe is a sheep; he strikes me rather as a jackdaw.’
‘Old Coyshe! how can you exaggerate so, Eve! He is not more than five or six-and-twenty.’
‘He is wise and learned enough to be regarded as old. I hate wise and learned men.’
‘What is there that you do not hate which is not light and frivolous?’ asked Barbara a little pettishly. ‘You have no serious interests in anything.’
‘I have no interests in anything here,’ said Eve, ‘because there is nothing here to interest me. I do not care for turnips and mangold, and what are the pigs and poultry to me? Can I be enthusiastic over draining? Can the price of bark make my pulses dance? No, Barbie (Bab you object to), I am sick of a country life in a poky corner of the most out-of-the-way county in England except Cornwall. Really, Barbie, I believe I would marry any man who would take me to London, and let me go to the theatre and to balls, and concerts and shows. Why, Barbara! I’d rather travel round the country in a caravan and dance on a tight-rope than be moped up here in Morwell, an old fusty, mouldering monk’s cell.’
‘My dear Eve!’
Barbara was so shocked, she could say no more.
I am in earnest. Papa is ill, and that makes the place more dull than ever. Jasper was some fun, he played the violin, and taught me music, but now you have meddled, and deprived me of that amusement; I am sick of the monotony here. It is only a shade better than Lanherne convent, and you know papa took me away from that; I fell ill with the restraint.’
‘You have no restraint here.’