So grew my love and with it a deep reverence for her innate and
virginal purity. It touched me deeply to note with what painful care
she set herself to correct the grammatical errors and roughness of her
speech; often she would fall to a sighful despondency because of her
ignorance and at such times it was, I think, that I loved her best,
vowing I would not change her for any proud lady that was or ever had
been; whereof ensued such conversations as the following:
DIANA. But when I am your wife we shall live in a fine house, I
suppose.
MYSELF. Would this distress you?
DIANA. And meet grand folk, I suppose--earls and lords and--and that
sort of thing?
MYSELF. It is likely.
DIANA. Shall we--must we have--servants?
MYSELF. To be sure.
DIANA (dismally). That's it! I shouldn't mind the earls s' much--it's
the grand servants as would bother me. And then--O Peregrine--if ever
I talked wrong or--acted wrong--not like a lady should--O Peregrine,
would you be--ashamed o' me?
MYSELF. No, no--I swear it!
DIANA. I never wanted to be a lady--but I do now, Peregrine, for your
sake.
MYSELF. You are good and brave and noble, Diana, and this is better
than all the fine-ladyishness in the world.
DIANA (wistfully). Well, I wish I was a lady, all the same.
MYSELF. You will soon learn, you who are so quick and clever.
It was at this period that she began to purchase books and study them
with passionate earnestness, more especially one, a thin, delicate
volume that piqued my curiosity since, judging by her puckered brow
and profound abstraction, this seemed to trouble and perplex her not a
little.
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