"If I could have settled down," I said to Biddy, plucking up the
short grass within reach, much as I had once upon a time pulled my
feelings out of my hair and kicked them into the brewery wall,--"if
I could have settled down and been but half as fond of the forge as
I was when I was little, I know it would have been much better for
me. You and I and Joe would have wanted nothing then, and Joe and I
would perhaps have gone partners when I was out of my time, and I
might even have grown up to keep company with you, and we might
have sat on this very bank on a fine Sunday, quite different
people. I should have been good enough for you; shouldn't I,
Biddy?"
Biddy sighed as she looked at the ships sailing on, and returned
for answer, "Yes; I am not over-particular." It scarcely sounded
flattering, but I knew she meant well.
"Instead of that," said I, plucking up more grass and chewing a
blade or two, "see how I am going on. Dissatisfied, and
uncomfortable, and--what would it signify to me, being coarse and
common, if nobody had told me so!"
Biddy turned her face suddenly towards mine, and looked far more
attentively at me than she had looked at the sailing ships.
"It was neither a very true nor a very polite thing to say," she
remarked, directing her eyes to the ships again.
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