"What a lovely afternoon!" she said at last.

"Yes. It is a pity to waste it. Have you any thing special to do? What
did you mean to employ yourself with, now your birds are flown?"

"Oh, I can always find something to do."

"But need you find it? We both work so hard. If we could only now and
then have a little bit of pleasure!"

He put it so simply, yet almost with a sigh. This poor girl's heart
responded to it suddenly, wildly. She was only twenty-five, yet
sometimes she felt quite old, or rather as if she had never been young.
The constant teaching, teaching of rough boys too--for she had had the
whole four till Mr. Roy took the two elder off her hands--the necessity
of grinding hard out of school hours to keep herself up in Latin, Euclid,
and other branches which do not usually form a part of a feminine
education, only having a great natural love of work, she had taught
herself--all these things combined to make her life a dull life, a hard
life, till Robert Roy came into it. And sometimes even now the desperate
craving to enjoy--not only to endure, but to enjoy--to take a little of
the natural pleasures of her age--came to the poor governess very sorely,
especially on days such as this, when all the outward world looked so
gay, so idle, and she worked so hard.

So did Robert Roy. Life was not easier to him than to herself; she knew
that; and when he said, half joking, as if he wanted to feel his way,
"Let us imitate our boys, and take a half holiday," she only laughed, but
did not refuse.