“Where, where? What eyes you have got! I do wish I was married to you. What a collection we would have! And you would never let my traps off. I am sure that you are a great deal better and prettier than Amy. And I like you more than anybody I have ever seen.” “Do you, Bob? Are you sure of that?” She fixed her large eyes upon his; and in one moment her beauty went to the bottom of his heart. It changed him from a boy to a man, from play to passion, from dreams to thought. And happy for him that it was so, with the trouble impending over him. She saw the change; herself too young, too pure (in spite of all the evil that ever had drifted by her) to know or ask what it meant. She only felt that Bob liked her now better than he liked Amy. She had no idea of the deep anticipation of her eyes. “Eoa, wonʼt you answer me?” He had been talking some nonsense. “Why are you crying so dreadfully? Do you hate me so much as all that?” “Oh no, no, Bob. I am sure I donʼt hate you at all. I only wish I did. No, I donʼt, Bob. I am so glad that I donʼt. I donʼt care a quarter so much, Bob, for all the rest of the world put together.” “Then only look up at me, Eoa. I canʼt tell what I am saying. Only look up. You are so nice. And you have got such eyes.” “Have I?” said Eoa, throwing all their splendour on him; “oh, I am so glad you like them.” “Do you think that you could give me just a sort of a kiss, Eoa? People always do, you know. And, indeed, I feel that you ought.” “I scarcely know what is right, Bob, after all the things they have told me. But now, you know, you must guide me.” “Then, Iʼll tell you what. Just let me give you one. The leaves are coming out so.” “Well, thatʼs a different thing,” said Eoa. “Amy canʼt see us, can she?” Sir Cradock Nowell was very angry when his niece came home, and told him, with an air of triumph, all that Bob had said to her. “That butterfly–hunting boy, Eoa! To think of his presuming so! A mere boy! A boy like that!” “Thatʼs the very thing, uncle. Perhaps if he had been a girl, you know, I should not have liked him half so much. And as for his hunting butterflies, I like him all the better for that. And weʼll hunt them all day long.” “Oh!” exclaimed Uncle Cradock, smiling at the young girlʼs earnestness in spite of all his wrath; “that is your idea of married life then, is it? But I never will allow it, Eoa: he is not your equal.” “Of course not, uncle. He is my superior in every possible way.” “Scarcely so, in the matter of birth; nor yet, my child, I fear, in a pecuniary sense.” “For both of those I donʼt care two pice. You know it is all very nice, Uncle Cradock, to live in large rooms, where you can put three chairs together, and jump over them all without knocking your head, and to have beautiful books, and prawns for breakfast, and flowers all the year round; and to be able to scold people without their daring to answer. But I could do without all that very well, but I never could do without Bob.”