Now, I too had so often thought it a pity, that, in the singular kind of

quarrel with myself which I was always carrying on, I was half inclined

to shed tears of vexation and distress when Biddy gave utterance to her

sentiment and my own. I told her she was right, and I knew it was much

to be regretted, but still it was not to be helped.

"If I could have settled down," I said to Biddy, plucking up the short

grass within reach, much as I had once upon a time pulled my feelings

out of my hair and kicked them into the brewery wall,--"if I could have

settled down and been but half as fond of the forge as I was when I was

little, I know it would have been much better for me. You and I and Joe

would have wanted nothing then, and Joe and I would perhaps have gone

partners when I was out of my time, and I might even have grown up to

keep company with you, and we might have sat on this very bank on a fine

Sunday, quite different people. I should have been good enough for you;

shouldn't I, Biddy?"

Biddy sighed as she looked at the ships sailing on, and returned for

answer, "Yes; I am not over-particular." It scarcely sounded flattering,

but I knew she meant well.

"Instead of that," said I, plucking up more grass and chewing a blade or

two, "see how I am going on. Dissatisfied, and uncomfortable, and--what

would it signify to me, being coarse and common, if nobody had told me

so!"

Biddy turned her face suddenly towards mine, and looked far more

attentively at me than she had looked at the sailing ships.

"It was neither a very true nor a very polite thing to say," she

remarked, directing her eyes to the ships again. "Who said it?"

I was disconcerted, for I had broken away without quite seeing where

I was going to. It was not to be shuffled off now, however, and I

answered, "The beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham's, and she's more

beautiful than anybody ever was, and I admire her dreadfully, and I want

to be a gentleman on her account." Having made this lunatic confession,

I began to throw my torn-up grass into the river, as if I had some

thoughts of following it.

"Do you want to be a gentleman, to spite her or to gain her over?" Biddy

quietly asked me, after a pause.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024