“Never; papa wished to take me often, but I refused, because I suppose again I am so very English.”
“Too English to face sea-sickness,” said her brother.
“I believe the fault is mine, Mr. Goodal,” said her father. “You see the gout never leaves me for long together. I am liable at any time to an attack; and gout is a bad companion on foreign travel. It is bad enough at home, as Nellie finds, who insists on being my only nurse; and I am so selfish that I have not the heart to let her go, and I believe she has hardly the heart to leave me.”
“Oh! I don’t wish to go. Cousin Edith goes every year, and we have such battles when she comes back. She cannot endure this climate, she cannot endure the people, she cannot endure the fashions, the language is too harsh and grating for her ear, the cooking is barbarous—every thing is bad. Now, I would rather stay at home and be happy in my ignorance than learn such lessons as that,” said honest Nellie.
“You would never learn such lessons.”
“Don’t you think so? But tell us now, Mr. Goodal, do not you, who have seen so much, find England very dull?”
“Excessively. That is one of its chief beauties. Dulness is one of our national privileges; and Roger here will tell you we pride ourselves on it.”
“Kenneth would say that dulness is only another word for what you would call our beautiful home-life,” said the gentleman appealed to.
“Dulness indeed! I don’t find it dull,” broke in Nellie, bridling up.
“No, the dairy and the kitchen; the dinner and tea; the Priory on a Sunday; the shopping excursions into Leighstone, where there is nothing to buy; the garden and the vinery; the visits to Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Knowles; to Widow Wickham, who is blind; to Mrs. Staynes, who is deaf, and whose husband ran away from her because, as he said, he feared that he would rupture a blood-vessel in trying to talk to her; the parish school and the charity hospital, make the life of a well-behaved young English lady quite a round of excitement. There are such things, too, as riding to hounds, and a ball once in a while, and croquet parties, and picnics, and the Eleusinian mysteries of the tea-table. Who shall say that, with all these opportunities for wild dissipation, English country life is dull?”