But Mrs. Rossitur looked anxiously at her husband. "Do you know exactly what you are undertaking, Rolf!" she said.
"If I do not, I presume I shall discover in time."
"But it may be too late," said Mrs. Rossitur, in the tone of sad remonstrance that had gone all the length it dared.
"It can not be too late!" said her husband, impatiently. "If I do not know what I am taking up, I know very well what I am laying down; and it does not signify a straw what comes after if it was a snail-shell, that would cover my head!"
"Hum " said the old doctor, "the snail is very well in his way, but I have no idea that he was ever cut out for a farmer."
"Do you think you will find it a business you would like, Mr.
Rossitur?" said his wife, timidly.
"I tell you," said he, facing about, "it is not a question of liking. I will like anything that will bury me out of the world."
Poor Mrs. Rossitur! She had not yet come to wishing herself buried alive, and she had small faith in the permanence of her husband's taste for it. She looked desponding.
"You don't suppose," said Mr. Rossitur, stopping again in the middle of the floor, after another turn and a half "you do not suppose that I am going to take the labouring of the farm upon myself? I shall employ some one, of course, who understands the matter, to take all that off my hands."
The doctor thought of the old proverb, and the alternative the plough presents to those who would thrive by it; Fleda thought of Mr. Didenhover; Mrs. Rossitur would fain have suggested that such an important person must be well paid; but neither of them spoke.