"Nay—not so, assuredly; but the time is so short since my mother's death."
"But our marriage makes that as nought. It has turned the house of mourning into one of merriment—or—it should have done so. It suffices I intend to go, and I will take you with me."
"Nay—Anthony, I would not cross you——"
"You do—you object." He spoke with irritation. "Do you not see, Urith, that this life of seclusion is intolerable to me? I have been unaccustomed to the existence which befits a hermit. I have been wont to attend every merry-making that took place—to laugh and dance and sing there, and eat and drink and be happy. I protest that it is to me as displeasing to be without my amusement as it would be to a kingfisher to be without his brook, or a peewhit to be condemned to a cage."
"But cannot you go without me?" asked Urith, disconcerted.
"No; it will be noted and remarked on. You are my wife—you are a bride. You ought to, you must, appear where others are. Why should you spend all your life in the loneliness of this—this Willsworthy? Do you not feel as cramped by it as must have felt Noah in the Ark?"
"I do not, Anthony."
"You do not, because you have never been out of the Ark; bred in it, you are accustomed to its confined atmosphere. I am not. I love to meet with and be merry with my fellows, and I cannot go alone. Why, Urith, on the fair day I went to Kilworthy, and there was Bessie. What did she say to me, but—'You should not be here, be at any entertainment in a neighbour's house without Urith?'"
"Did Bessie say that?"