"Grandfather," she continued, in almost piteous embarrassment. "I--I wish to say something to you--I have been thinking about it for a long while back--and yet afraid you mightn't understand--you might be angry--"
"Well, well, what is it?" he said, impatiently. "What are you dissatisfied with? I don't see that you've much to complain of, or I either. We don't live a life of grandeur; nor is there much excitement about it; but it is fairly comfortable. I consider we are very well off."
"We are too well off, grandfather," she said, sadly.
He started at this, and stared at her again.
"Grandfather," she said, in the same pathetic voice, "don't you see that I am no longer a child? I am a woman. And I am doing nothing. Why did you give me so careful an education if I am not to use it? I wish to earn something--I--I wish to keep you and me, grandfather--"
The stammering sentences ceased: he replied slowly, and perhaps a trifle coldly.
"Why did I have you carefully educated? Well, I should have thought you might have guessed--might have understood. But I will tell you. I have given you what education was possible in our circumstances in order to fit you for the station which some day you may be called upon to fill. And if not, if it is fated that injustice and iniquity are to be in our case perpetual, at all events you must be worthy of the name you bear. But it was not as an implement of trade," he continued, more warmly, "that I gave you such education as was possible in our wandering lives. What do you want to do? Teach music? And you would use your trained hand and ear--and your trained soul, which is of more importance still--to drum mechanical rudiments into the brats of some bourgeois household? A fit employment for a Bethune of Balloray!"
"Grandfather, I must speak! I must speak! You may be angry or not--but--but I am no longer a child--I can see how we are situated--and--and if it is pride that causes me to speak, remember who it is that has taught me to think of our name. Grandfather, let us begin a new life! I can work--I am old enough to work--I would slave my fingers to the bone for you! Grandfather, why should you accept assistance from any one?--from Lord Musselburgh or any one? No, I do not blame you--I have always thought that everything you did was right--and kind and good; but I cannot be a child any longer--I must say what I think and feel. Grandfather----"