You must know this Hamlet was a Prince among the Danes,' and he told her the play in a very good style, here and there quoting a verse or two with solemn emphasis.
'It is strange,' said Nance; 'he was then a very poor creature ?' 'That was what he could not tell,' said Mr.Archer.

'Look at me, am I as poor a creature ?' She looked, and what she saw was the familiar thought of all her hours; the tall figure very plainly habited in black, the spotless ruffles, the slim hands; the long, well-shapen, serious, shaven face, the wide and somewhat thin-lipped mouth, the dark eyes that were so full of depth and change and colour.

He was gazing at her with his brows a little knit, his chin upon one hand and that elbow resting on his knee.
'Ye look a man!' she cried, 'ay, and should be a great one! The more shame to you to lie here idle like a dog before the fire.' 'My fair Holdaway,' quoth Mr.Archer, 'you are much set on action.

I cannot dig, to beg I am ashamed.' He continued, looking at her with a half-absent fixity, ''Tis a strange thing, certainly, that in my years of fortune I should never taste happiness, and now when I am broke, enjoy so much of it, for was I ever happier than to-day?
Was the grass softer, the stream pleasanter in sound, the air milder, the heart more at peace?
Why should I not sink?
To dig--why, after all, it should be easy.

To take a mate, too?
Love is of all grades since Jupiter; love fails to none; and children'-- but here he passed his hand suddenly over his eyes.
'O fool and coward, fool and coward!' he said bitterly; 'can you forget your fetters?
You did not know that I was fettered, Nance ?' he asked, again addressing her.
But Nance was somewhat sore.