“Well, we’ll try,” said Lily gayly. She was so gay, she was so full of quips and cranks, so ready with amusing turns of speech and audacious propositions, that Ronald found her a new Lily, full of brightness and fun and novel, ridiculous suggestions and high-flown notions, which she was ready herself to laugh at as high-flown, yet taking his sober thoughts to pieces and turning them upside down. What would it be, indeed, to carry her away with him, to have her always there, turning every little misfortune into fun and laughter, making every misadventure a source of amusement instead of trouble! A gleam of light rose in his eyes, and then he shook his head slightly to himself and sighed. The shake of the head and the sigh were when Lily’s back was turned. He dared not let her see them, divine them, answer them with a hundred quick-flashing arguments. She had an answer for every thing, he knew. She cared nothing for the things that were, after all, the chief things to care for--money, progress in the world, that sound foundation in life without which no man could make sure of rising to the head of his profession. Some did it without doubt. There was Lord Pleasaunce, that had fought his way to the bench, marrying a wife and beginning in a garret, as Lily wished; now he thought of it, she was something like Lily, the judge’s wife, though fat now and roundabout. They had even been Lord Advocate in their time, and gone to London (with such a couple, even Ronald felt instinctively, you don’t say he, but they) and struggled through somehow; but always poor, always poor! They did not seem to mind; but then Ronald knew that he would always mind. They had no fortunes for their daughters nor to put out their sons well in the world. He shook his head again as he rejected once more that possibility which for a moment, only for a moment, had caught and almost beguiled him. Lily had gone out of the room, but, coming back, caught that last shake of his head. “And what is that for?” she said. “You will have been thinking that Lily is good for very little, that she could not keep the house and make the meat as she thinks, but would look to be served herself, hand and foot, as she is here.” “Not that--but still my Lily has always been served hand and foot. There is Beenie, without whom we cannot budge a step----” “No,” said Lily gravely, “without Beenie I could not budge a step--not because Beenie is my maid, and I need her to serve me, but because it would break her heart.” “My love, poor folk as we shall be cannot afford to think of breaking hearts.” “I will break yours rather!” cried Lily, with a little stamp of her foot. “I will give ye ill dinners and a house that is never redd up, and keep Beenie like a lady in the best room and give her all the good things.” “That is just what I say,” said Ronald; “we will have a train--all the old servants that cannot endure their lives without Miss Lily, perhaps Katrin and Dougal, too.”