"
"Well," said he with some compunction, "look there! That new friend of
yours--he's no great beauty, you must confess--is all right now. The
bath has cured him. As soon as he's done licking his paws he'll be off
home, wherever that may be. But I've always noticed that about you,
Wenna: you're always on the side of things that are ugly and helpless
and useless in the world; and you're not very just to those who don't
agree with you. For after all, you know, one wants time to acquire
that notion of yours--that it is only weak and ill-favored creatures
that are worthy of the least consideration."
"Yes," she said rather sadly, "you want time to learn that."
He looked at her. Did she mean that her sympathy with those who were
weak and ill-favored arose from some strange consciousness that she
herself was both? His cheeks began to burn red. He had often heard her
hint something like that, and yet he had never dared to reason with
her or show her what he thought of her. Should he do so now?
"Wenna," he said, blushing hotly, "I can't make you out sometimes. You
speak as if no one cared for you. Now, if I were to tell you--"
"Oh, I am not so ungrateful," she said hastily. "I know that two or
three do; and--and, Mr. Trelyon, do you think you could coax that
little dog over the stream again? You see he has come back again--he
can't find his way home."
Mr. Trelyon called to the dog: it came down to the river's side, and
whined and shivered on the brink.
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