"Not because I was afflicted with humility, but because I was proud and happy to be that. And because it was a good joke: you do not mind my enjoying a good joke, I hope? Then you do not know how happy it made me; I have had so much done for me, and have been so little useful."
Vesty was not satisfied. Her clear, impersonal gaze held me with a look fearless of its compassion, single and direct.
"I wish you would not leave the Basin," she said. "I am never—I am never happy when you are away."
"God bless you, my little girl!" I said, and hobbled away to finish the housework, but my heart seemed to take on a pair of pure white wings, like dove's wings. I forgot withal that I was lame.
XI
ANOTHER NAIL
"Chipadees sing pretty," said Captain Pharo, drawing a match along the leg of his trousers and lighting his pipe, as we stood amid the song of birds in the lane—"but robins is noisy creeturs, always at the same old tune—poo! poo! hohum! Wal, wal—
