hristmas."

"Hem! Quite probable."

"But she need not to have been. Fool of a lad! I swear you might have
had her."

"By what token, Mr. Yorke?"

"By every token--by the light of her eyes, the red of her cheeks. Red
they grew when your name was mentioned, though of custom they are pale."

"My chance is quite over, I suppose?"

"It ought to be. But try; it is worth trying. I call this Sir Philip
milk and water. And then he writes verses, they say--tags rhymes. _You_
are above that, Bob, at all events."

"Would you advise me to propose, late as it is, Mr. Yorke--at the
eleventh hour?"

"You can but make the experiment, Robert. If she has a fancy for
you--and, on my conscience, I believe she has or had--she will forgive
much. But, my lad, you are laughing. Is it at me? You had better grin at
your own perverseness. I see, however, you laugh at the wrong side of
your mouth. You have as sour a look at this moment as one need wish to
see."

"I have so quarrelled with myself, Yorke. I have so kicked against the
pricks, and struggled in a strait waistcoat, and dislocated my wrists
with wrenching them in handcuffs, and battered my hard head by driving
it against a harder wall."

"Ha! I'm glad to hear that. Sharp exercise yon! I hope it has done you
good--ta'en some of the self-conceit out of you?"

"Self-conceit? What is it? Self-respect, self-tolerance even, what are
they? Do you sell the articles? Do you know anybody who does? Give an
indication. They would find in me a liberal chapman. I would part with
my last guinea this minute to buy."

"Is it so with you, Robert? I find that spicy. I like a man to speak his
mind. What has gone wrong?"

"The machinery of all my nature; the whole enginery of this human mill;
the boiler, which I take to be the heart, is fit to burst."

"That suld be putten i' print; it's striking. It's almost blank verse.
Ye'll be jingling into poetry just e'now. If the afflatus comes, give
way, Robert. Never heed me; I'll bear it this whet [time]."

"Hideous, abhorrent, base blunder! You may commit in a moment what you
will rue for years--what life cannot cancel."

"Lad, go on. I call it pie, nuts, sugar-candy. I like the taste
uncommonly. Go on. It will do you good to talk. The moor is before us
now, and there is no life for many a mile round."

"I _will_ talk. I am not ashamed to tell. There is a sort of wild cat in
my breast, and I choose that you shall hear how it can yell."

"To