"Don't come over a fellow with your cleverness, Nell! I am not a reader; but I should take good care I knew what was in the papers before I signed them, I can tell you. Eh! you'd like me to slave, to get you luxuries, you little exacting Nell." "Yes, Phil," she said, "I'd like to think you were working for our living. I should indeed. It seems somehow so much finer--so real a life. And I should work at home." "A great deal you would work," he said, laughing, "with those scraps of fingers! Let's hear what you would do--bits of little pictures, or impossible things in pincushions, or so forth--and walk out in your most becoming bonnet to force them down some poor shop-keeper's throat?" "Phil!" she said, "how contemptuous you are of my efforts. But I never thought of either sketches or pincushions. I should work at home to keep the house nice--to look after the servants, and guide the cook, and see that you had nice dinners." "And warm my slippers by the parlour fire," said Phil. "That's too domestic, Nell, for you and me." "But we are going to be very domestic, Phil." "Are we? Not if I knows it; yawn our heads off, and get to hate one another. Not for me, Nell. You'll find yourself up to the eyes in engagements before you know where you are. No, no, old girl, you may do a deal with me, but you don't make a domestic man of Phil Compton. Time enough for that when we've had our fling." "I don't want any fling, Phil," she said, clinging a little closer to his arm. "But I do, my pet, in the person of Benedick the married man. Don't you think I want to show all the fellows what a stunning little wife I've got? and all the women I used to flirt with----" "Did you use to flirt much with them, Phil?" "You didn't think I flirted with the men, did you? like you did," said Phil, who was not particular about his grammar. "I want to show you off a bit. Nell. When we go down to the governor's, there you can be as domestic as you like. That's the line to take with him, and pays too if you do it well." "Oh, don't talk as if you were always calculating for your advantage," she said, "for you are not, Phil. You are not a prudent person, but a horrid, extravagant spendthrift; if you go on chucking sovereigns about as you did yesterday." "Well," he said, laughing, "wasn't it well spent? Didn't I make your Rector open his old eyes, and stop the mouths of the old maids? I don't throw away sovereigns in a general way, Nell, only when there's a purpose in it. But I think I did them all finely that time--had them on toast, eh?" "You made an impression, if that is what you mean; but I confess I thought you did it out of kindness, Phil." "To the Punch and Judy? catch me! Sovereigns ain't plentiful enough for that. You little exacting thing, ain't you pleased, when I did it to please you, and get you credit among your friends?"