"
"I will try," answered Donal; "I may not he able."
He began to read at the top of the page.
"That's not the place, sir!" said the boy. "It is there."
"I must know something of what goes before it first," returned
Donal.
"Oh, yes, sir; I see!" he answered, and stood silent.
He was a fair-haired boy, with ruddy cheeks and a healthy
look--sweet-tempered evidently.
Donal presently saw both what the sentence meant and the cause of
his difficulty. He explained the thing to him.
"Thank you! thank you! Now I shall get on!" he cried, and ran up
the hill.
"You seem to understand boys!" said the brother.
"I have always had a sort of ambition to understand ignorance."
"Understand ignorance?"
"You know what queer shapes the shadows of the plainest things take:
I never seem to understand any thing till I understand its shadow."
The youth glanced keenly at Donal.
"I wish I had had a tutor like you!" he said.
"Why?" asked Donal.
"I should done better.--Where do you live?"
Donal told him he was lodging with Andrew Comin, the cobbler. A
silence followed.
"Good morning!" said the youth.
"Good morning, sir!" returned Donal, and went away.
CHAPTER IX.
THE MORVEN ARMS.
On Wednesday evening Donal went to The Morven Arms to inquire for
the third time if his box was come. The landlord said, if a great
heavy tool-chest was the thing he expected, it had come.
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