Yet how could he tell if what she said was true, when her eyes laughed?
"I shall get all I can out of being here. Mary Flippin is going to let me help her make butter, and Mrs. Flippin will teach me to make corn-bread, and some day I am going fishing with the Judge and Mr. Flippin and learn to fry eggs out-of-doors——"
"So those are the things you like?"
She nodded. "I think I do. George Dalton says it is only because I crave a change. But it isn't that. And I haven't told him the way I feel about it—the Dickens way—as I have told you."
He was glad that she had not talked to Dalton as she had talked to him.
"I wonder," he said slowly, "why you couldn't shake yourself free from the life which binds you?"
"I'm not strong enough. I'm like the drug-fiend, who doesn't want his drug, but can't give it up."
"Perhaps you need—help. There are doctors of everything, you know, in these days."
"None that can cure me of the habit of frivolity—of the claims of custom——"