Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 1.djvu/126

114 want to deprive me of my walk and my visit besides—Go back to your fields and your cattle, you lubberly fellow; you're not fit to associate with ladies and gentlemen, like us, that have nothing to do but to run snooking about to our neighbours' houses, peeping into their private corners; and scenting out their secrets, and picking holes in their coats, when we don't find them ready made to our hands—you don't understand such refined sources of enjoyment."

"Can't you both go?" suggested Eliza, disregarding the latter half of the speech.

"Yes, both to be sure!" cried Rose; "the more the merrier—and I'm sure we shall want all the cheerfulness we can carry with us to that great, dark, gloomy room, with its narrow latticed windows, and its dismal old furniture—unless she shews us into her studio again."

So we went all in a body; and the meager old maidservant, that opened the door, ushered