Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/90

82 He had fair hair, an honest face, always on the alert for a laugh. As he had been unqualified for any trade, his father had given him work in the quarry, but therein he earned but a labourer's wage, fourteen shillings a week.

Thomasine reseated herself on the lowest step but one, and put her feet on the lowest, and crossed her hands on her lap.

"Arkie," said she; "I am going away from Court, the life here is too dull for me. I want to see the world."

"Where are you going, Tamsin?"

"Not to bury myself in a place where nothing is doing, again."

"Nothing doing! There is plenty of work on a farm."

"Work!" scorned Thomasine. "Who wants work now? not I—I want to go where there are murders and burglaries and divorces—into a place where there is life."

"Queer sort of life that," said Archelaus, casting himself down on the lowest step.

"I want to be where those things are done and talked about," said Thomasine; "what do I care about how the corn looks, and whether the sheep have the foot-rot, and what per stone is the price of bullocks? Now—you need not sit on my feet."

"I will choose a higher step," said the lad; then he stepped past her, and seated himself on that above her.

"Upon my word, Tamsin," he said, "you have wonderful hair. It is like mother's copper kettle new scoured, and spun into spiders' threads. Some red hair," continued he, "is coarse as wire, but this," he put his fingers through the splendid waves, "but this——"

"Is not for you to meddle with," said Thomasine. "Shall I make my fortune with it in the world?"

She stood up, and stepped past him, and seated herself on the step immediately above that he occupied.

"In the world!" repeated Archelaus. "What world——