zest and all necessity for that small talk which serves, like the changes
of a game, to while away time, and by the aid of which, if we do no more,
we often delude the cares and worries of existence.

A kind good-morning when they met, and a few words during the day--some
mention of this or that event of the farm or the labourers, and rare enough
too--some little incident that happened amongst the tenants, made all the
materials of their intercourse, and filled up lives which either would very
freely have owned were far from unhappy.

Dick, indeed, when he came home and was weather-bound for a day, did lament
his sad destiny, and mutter half-intelligible nonsense of what he would
not rather do than descend to such a melancholy existence; but in all
his complainings he never made Kate discontented with her lot, or desire
anything beyond it.

'It's all very well,' he would say, 'till you know something better.'

'But I want no better.'

'Do you mean you'd like to go through life in this fashion?'

'I can't pretend to say what I may feel as I grow older; but if I could be
sure to be as I am now, I could ask nothing better.'

'I must say, it's a very inglorious life?' said he, with a sneer.

'So it is, but how many, may I ask, are there who lead glorious lives? Is
there any glory in dining out, in dancing, visiting, and picnicking? Where
is the great glory of the billiard-table, or the croquet-lawn? No, no, my