"He would have had me open out to
him, and I wouldn't. How could I! Whatever I said that pleased him,
would have looked as if I wanted to secure my situation! Hang it
all! I have a good mind to throw it up. How is a Graeme to serve
under a bumpkin?"
"The man is not a bumpkin; he is a scholar and a poet!" said the
lady.
"Pooh! pooh! What's a poet?"
"One that may or may not be as good a man of business as yourself
when it is required of him."
"Come, come! don't you turn against me, Kate! It's hard enough to
bear as it is!"
Miss Graeme made no reply. She was meditating all she knew of Donal,
to guide her to the something to which she was sure her brother had
not let him come; and presently she made him recount again all they
had said to each other.
"I tell you, Hector," she exclaimed, "you never made such a fool of
yourself in your life! If I know human nature, that man is different
from any other you have had to do with. It will take a woman, a
better woman than your sister, I confess, to understand him; but I
see a little farther into him than you do. He is a man who, never
having had money enough to learn the bad uses of it, and never
having formed habits it takes money to supply, having no ambition,
living in books not in places, and for pleasure having more at his
command in himself than the richest--he is a man who, I say, would
find money an impediment to his happiness, for he must have a sense
of duty with regard to it which would interfere with everything he
liked best.
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