Not I, replied he, a volume. This is the way with you all, I perceive, high and low together. Women must read, as if they didn’t know all beforehand: Weary of plying the pump, we turn to the running water, And the running spring will needs have a pump built upon it. Weary and sick of our books, we come to repose in your eyelight, As to the woodland and water, the freshness and beauty of Nature. Lo, you will talk, forsooth, of things we are sick to the death of. What, she said, and if I have let you become my sweetheart, I am to read no books! but you may go your ways then, And I will read, she said, with my father at home as I used to. If you must have it, he said, I myself will read them to you. Well, she said, but no, I will read to myself, when I choose it; What, you suppose we never read anything here in our Highlands, Bella and I with the father, in all our winter evenings! But we must go, Mr. Philip— I shall not go at all, said He, if you call me Mr. Thank heaven! that’s over for ever. No, but it’s not, she said, it is not over, nor will be. Was it not then, she asked, the name I called you first by? No, Mr. Philip, no—you have kissed me enough for two nights; No—come, Philip, come, or I’11 go myself without you. You never call me Philip, he answered, until I kiss you. As they went home by the moon that waning now rose later, Stepping through mossy stones by the runnel under the alders, Loitering unconsciously, Philip, she said, I will not be a lady; We will do work together—you do not wish me a lady. It is a weakness perhaps and a foolishness; still it is so; I have been used all my life to help myself and others; I could not bear to sit and be waited on by footmen, No, not even by women— And God forbid, he answered, God forbid you should ever be aught but yourself, my Elspie! As for service, I love it not, I; your weakness is mine too, I am sure Adam told you as much as that about me. I am sure, she said, he called you wild and flighty. That was true, he said, till my wings were clipped. But, my Elspie, You will at least just go and see my uncle and cousins, Sister, and brother, and brother’s wife. You should go, if you liked it, Just as you are; just what you are, at any rate, my Elspie. Yes, we will go, and give the old solemn gentility stage-play One little look, to leave it with all the more satisfaction. That may be, my Philip, she said; you are good to think of it. But we are letting our fancies run on indeed; after all, it May all come, you know, Mr. Philip, to nothing whatever, There is so much that needs to be done, so much that may happen. All that needs to be done, said he, shall be done, and quickly. And on the morrow he took good heart, and spoke with David. Not unwarned the father, nor had been unperceiving: