I feel slightly bored. Annie went into Rexingham this morning with
Robert and the early milk cart. She is to spend the day with an aunt,
and return with the empty cart this evening. Twice a day the Andersons
send in their milk to Rexingham, and winter and summer son Robert must
rise at 3 a.m. to see to the milking, harness Dolly or Dobbin, and jog
off his seven miles. Seven miles there, and seven miles back, morning
and evening; that is twenty-eight miles in all, and ever the self-same
bit of road in every weather. So that a farmer's life has its seamy side
also. But then, to get back of a night! To find a good little wife like
Annie waiting for you at the upper gate or by the house door. To eat
your supper and smoke your pipe, with your feet on the mantel-piece if
you pleased, and no possibility of being ordered into dress clothes to
go to some vile theatre or idiotic dance--above all, to know that
Catherine knew you were perfectly happy without her--by the bye, I
wonder she has not written to me! Not that I want her to, of course.
This would entail a few frozen conventional lines back by way of answer.
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