“I am very particular,” he said at last; “but you are fit to dine with anybody. How have you managed to learn it all? You take the best of everything, without a word about it, as gently as great ladies do. I thought that you would want me to eat the nicest pieces; but instead of that, you have left me bones and drumsticks.” He gave such a melancholy look at these that Insie laughed quite merrily. “I wanted to see you practice chivalry,” she said. “Well, never mind; I shall know another time. Instead of two birds, I shall order four, and other things in proportion. But now I want to know about your father and your mother. They must be respectable people, to judge by you. What is their proper name, and how much have they got to live upon?” “More than you--a great deal more than you,” she answered, with such a roguish smile that he forgot his grievances, or began to lose them in the mist of beauty. “More than me! And they live in such a hole, where only the crows come near them?” “Yes, more than you, Sir. They have their wits to live upon, and industry, and honesty.” Pet was not old enough yet in the world to say, “What is the use of all those? All their income is starvation.” He was young enough to think that those who owned them had advantage of him, for he knew that he was very lazy. Moreover, he had heard of such people getting on--through the striking power of exception, so much more brilliant than the rule--when all the blind virtues found luck to lead them. Industry, honesty, and ability always get on in story-books, and nothing is nicer than to hear a pretty story. But in some ways Pet was sharp enough. “Then they never will want that house rent-free, nor the fat pig, nor any other presents. Oh, Insie, how very much better that will be! I find it so much nicer always to get things than to give them. And people are so good-natured, when they have done it, and can talk of it. Insie, they shall give me something when I marry you, and as often as they like afterward.” “They will give you something you will not like,” she answered, with a laugh, and a look along the moor, “if you stay here too long chattering with me. Do you know what o'clock it is? I know always, whether the sun is out or in. You need show no gold watch to me.” “Oh, that comes of living in a draught all day. The out-door people grow too wise. What do you see about ten miles off? It must be ten miles to that hill.” “That hill is scarcely five miles off, and what I see is not half of that. I brought you up here to be quite safe. Maunder's eyes are better than mine. But he will not see us, for another mile, if you cover your grand waistcoat, because we are in the shadows. Slip down into the gill again, and keep below the edge of it, and go home as fast as possible.”