Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/170

Rh soon. You know we can't afford to pay you anything like what you're worth. Do you think it's worth while to start a lot of things? . . . you see, we shouldn't know how to deal with them if you suddenly went to edit a poetry book, or write elegies, for the people who can afford luxuries."

"Look here," said he; "sit down for a minute under this apple-tree, will you? Now look here. I've got something to propose. Don't think me impertinent—but do you mind telling me if the place is yours?"

"Oh no," said Jane, "I wish it was."

"What a pity ! Have you the lease then?"

"No, but we've got it for five years if we like. We had a letter telling us so yesterday. And if we want to we can go on having it."

"You ought to have that letter stamped," said the young man with the classic profile. "And even then I don't know that it would be binding without a signed agreement."

"We're to have that too. A lawyer is making it. The letter said so."

"Well, then," began Mr. Dix eagerly, "my idea is this . . ." But Jane stopped him neatly.

"No, no," she said. "I'm dying to hear it, but it's not fair on Lucilla—and we can't both leave the shop at the same time. That's the only sickening thing about keeping a shop—someone has to be always in it, ready to sell, even if there's nobody in it who wants to buy. And it's so dull for one person alone that we both have to be there all the time, and so neither of us has any time to do anything else. And how we shall manage now we've got the whole house as well as the garden room . . . But look here, we'll bring lunch down here, shall we, and have a council of war?"

"I've got some milk and bread and butter and cheese," said Mr. Dix, "and lettuce."

"All right, bring them along," said Jane, returning reluctantly to Lucilla and duty.

So, under the apple-tree, with the little green apples