"I know what such submission is worth!" said Arctura. "I should be
everything till we were married, and then nothing! You dissemble,
you hide even from yourself, but you are not hard to read."
Perhaps she would not have spoken just so severely, had she not been
that morning unusually annoyed with his behaviour to Donal, and at
the same time specially pleased with the calm, unconsciously
dignified way in which Donal took it, casting it from him as the
rock throws aside the sea-wave: it did not concern him! The dull
world has got the wrong phrase: it is he who resents an affront who
pockets it! he who takes no notice, lets it lie in the dirt.
CHAPTER LXVIII.
LARKIE.
It was a lovely day in spring.
"Please, Mr. Grant," said Davie, "may I have a holiday?"
Donal looked at him with a little wonder: the boy had never before
made such a request! But he answered him at once.
"Yes, certainly, Davie. But I should like to know what you want it
for."
"Arkie wants very much to have a ride to-day. She says Larkie--I
gave him his name, to rime with Arkie--she says Larkie will forget
her, and she does not wish to go out with Forgue, so she wants me to
go with her on my pony."
"You will take good care of her, Davie?"
"I will take care of her, but you need not be anxious about us, Mr.
Grant. Arkie is a splendid rider, and much pluckier than she used to
be!"
Donal did, however--he could not have said why--feel a little
anxiety.
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