“Nor could you be too far from it to please me. Let us get quit of it equally. Why should you linger about it any more than I? I give it a wide berth.”

“I can’t get away from it, I think,” said Lizzie, passing her hand across her forehead. “It’s no purpose of mine that I live by it still.”

“There you go, Liz! Dreaming again! You lodge yourself of your own accord in a house with a drunken⁠—tailor, I suppose⁠—or something of the sort, and a little crooked antic of a child, or old person, or whatever it is, and then you talk as if you were drawn or driven there. Now, do be more practical.”

She had been practical enough with him, in suffering and striving for him; but she only laid her hand upon his shoulder⁠—not reproachfully⁠—and tapped it twice or thrice. She had been used to do so, to soothe him when she carried him about, a child as heavy as herself. Tears started to his eyes.