Читать книгу Within the Precincts онлайн

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“What does it matter? Oh, nothing! nothing!” cried Lottie. “Why should anything matter? It only shows me a little more, a very little more, how cold the world is, and that nobody has a heart!”

“Few people have very much, I suppose,” said the young man; “at least, so the governor says. But what good or harm could it do you to have a parting sign from her? I knew she would never give it you. I knew she would be thinking of nobody but herself——”

“What did you know about it?” cried the girl. “You were never a friend of hers! you were never begged and prayed to go and sing at the Deanery! she never came down the Abbey Hill to look for you! But me she has done all that for; and when I thought just for once she would let everybody see that Lottie Despard was a friend—Oh, Law, for the love of Heaven, go and work at something, and don’t stand there staring at me!”

“What am I to work at?” said the young man, with a yawn. “It’s past working hours; besides, in summer how can anyone work? I can’t make head nor tail of that Euclid when the sun is shining.”