Shirley

market-day.«
    »Mr. Yorke is going too: I met him in his gig. Come home with him.«
    »Why?«
    »Two are better than one, and nobody dislikes Mr. Yorke; at least, poor people do not dislike him.«
    »Therefore he would be a protection to me, who am hated?«
    »Who are
misunderstood:
that, probably, is the word. Shall you be late? – Will he be late, cousin Hortense?«
    »It is too probable: he has often much business to transact at Whinbury. Have you brought your exercise-book, child?«
    »Yes. What time will you return, Robert?«
    »I generally return at seven. Do you wish me to be at home earlier?«
    »Try rather to be back by six. It is not absolutely dark at six now; but by seven daylight is quite gone.«
    »And what danger is to be apprehended, Caroline, when daylight
is
gone? What peril do you conceive comes as the companion of darkness, for me?«
    »I am not sure that I can define my fears; but we all have a certain anxiety at present about our friends. My uncle calls these times dangerous: he says, too, that mill-owners are unpopular.«
    »And I one of the most unpopular? Is not that the fact? You are reluctant to speak out plainly, but at heart you think me liable to Pearson's fate, who was shot at – not, indeed, from behind a hedge, but in his own house, through his staircase-window, as he was going to bed.«
    »Anne Pearson showed me the bullet in the chamber-door,« remarked Caroline, gravely, as she folded her mantle, and arranged it and her muff on a side-table. »You know,« she continued, »there is a hedge all the way along the road from here to Whinbury, and there are the Field-head plantations to pass; but you will be back by six – or before?«
    »Certainly he will,« affirmed Hortense. »And now, my child, prepare your lessons for repetition, while I put the pease to soak for the purée at dinner.«
    With this direction, she left the room.
    »You suspect I have many enemies then, Caroline?« said Mr. Moore; »and, doubtless, you know me to be destitute of friends?«
    »Not destitute, Robert. There is your sister, your brother Louis – whom I have never seen – there is Mr. Yorke, and there is my uncle; besides, of course, many more.«
    Robert smiled. »You would be puzzled to name your ›many more,‹« said he. »But show me your exercise-book. What extreme pains you take with the writing! My sister, I suppose, exacts this care: she wants to form you in all things after the model of a Flemish school-girl. What life are you destined for, Caroline? What will you do with your French, drawing, and other accomplishments when they are acquired?«
    »You may well say, when they are acquired; for, as you are aware, till Hortense began to teach me, I knew precious little. As to the life I am destined for, I cannot tell: I suppose, to keep my uncle's house, till –« she hesitated.
    »Till what? Till he dies?«
    »No. How harsh to say that! I never think of his dying: he is only fifty-five. But till – in short, till events offer other occupations for me.«
    »A remarkably vague prospect! Are you content with it?«
    »I used to be, formerly. Children, you know, have little reflection, or rather their reflections run on ideal themes. There are moments
now
when I am not quite satisfied.«
    »Why?«
    »I am making no money – earning nothing.«
    »You come to the point, Lina; you too, then, wish to make money?«
    »I do: I should like an occupation; and if I were a boy, it would not be so difficult to find one. I see such an easy, pleasant way of learning a business, and making my way in life.«
    »Go on: let us hear what way.«
    »I could be apprenticed to your trade – the cloth-trade: I could learn it of you, as we are distant relations. I would do the counting-house work, keep the books, and write the letters, while you went to market. I know you greatly desire to be rich, in order to pay your father's debts; perhaps I could help you to get rich.«
    »Help
me?
You should think of yourself.«
    »I do think of myself; but must one for ever think only of oneself?«
    »Of whom else do I think? Of whom else
dare
I think? The poor ought to have no large sympathies; it is their duty to be narrow.«
    »No, Robert –«
    »Yes, Caroline, Poverty is necessarily selfish, contracted, grovelling, anxious. Now and then a poor man's heart, when certain beams and dews visit it, may swell like the budding vegetation in yonder garden on this spring-day, may feel ripe to evolve in foliage – perhaps blossom;