"Why, Anthony? I thought you told me you were going to live in chambers
in London and read for the Bar."

"Well, London isn't Italy, and one doesn't eat dinners at Lincoln's
Inn all the year round, one comes home sometimes. And heaven knows whom
you'll meet in those places or what tricks that horrible old aunt of
yours will be playing with you. Oh! it's wicked! How can you desert your
poor father and mother in this way, to say nothing of your sisters? I
never thought you were so hard-hearted."

"Anthony," said Barbara in a gentle voice, "do you know what we have got
to live on? In good years it comes to about 150 pounds, but once, when
my father got into that lawsuit over the dog that was supposed to kill
the sheep, it went down to 70 pounds. That was the winter when two
of the little ones died for want of proper food--nothing else--and I
remember that the rest of us had to walk barefoot in the mud and snow
because there was no money to buy us boots, and only some of us could
go out at once because we had no cloaks to put on. Well, all this may
happen again. And so, Anthony, do you think that I should be right to
throw away thirty pounds a year and to make a quarrel with my aunt, who
is rich and kind-hearted although very over-bearing, and the only friend
we have? If my father died, Anthony, or even was taken ill, and he is
not very strong, what would become of us? Unless Aunt Thompson chose to
help we should all have to go to the workhouse, for girls who have not
been specially trained can earn nothing, except perhaps as domestic
servants, if they are strong enough. I don't want to go away and read
to Aunt Maria and take the pug dog out walking, although it is true I
should like to see Italy, but I must--can't you understand--I must.
So please reproach me no more, for it is hard to bear--especially from