to do anything that he has forbidden, than that the moon is made of green cheese? I shan't shoot to-morrow; I mean to do something worse."
CHAPTER VI.
But she may learn; and happier than this,
She is not bred so dull but she can learn."
Breakfast is over, and the monotonous burden of our sins sung into our ears, from the saying of amen at prayers, to the last drop in the governor's coffee-cup, is over. It has been very bad, but in listening to his fulminations we have been let off the active misery of conversation; and on the whole, for we are very hardened sinners, we almost prefer this breakfast to our usual ones. He is standing in the hall now, brushing his hat, and the sound sends a thrill of delight through our bodies; we know the full import of it so well though we hear it so much, much too rarely. Up the carriage-drive comes the sharp trot of a horse's hoofs; it is the dog-cart that is going to take him to the station. Simpkins carries out his travelling-bag (the old varlet is as pleased in his heart as we are, he too will get a little holiday), and we all go into the hall and make a frosty peck, one by one, at the governor's face, occasionally hitting his nose or eyebrow by mistake. He eyes us keenly to see if he can detect any indecent joy upon our faces, but they are perfectly blank and stolid, to such abhorred hypocrisy have we already brought our innocent, indeterminate, pink-and-white features. He kisses mother (how droll it seems to see him making a peck at anybody!) and now he is in the dog-cart, he is starting, he is giving a sharp look at our assembled countenances, he is off, and has turned the corner of the drive. Still there is unbroken silence; then as the last sound of the wheels dies away in the distance, the delight that has been running riot within us, breaks forth in exclamations, laughter, leaps, dances, whoops, and (on my part at least)
