"You are in the right of it, Jenny," said he, in a most remorseful

voice.

Jenny looked up.

"Yes," he continued. "I was in the wrong. O'Toole is the most selfish

man in the whole world. Cowardly, too! But there never was a selfish man

who was not at heart a bit of a coward. Sure enough, sooner or later the

cowardice comes out. It is a preposterous thing that O'Toole should

think that you and I are going to rescue his heiress for him while he

sits at his ease by the inn fire. No; let us go back to him and tell him

to his face the selfish cowardly man he is."

Advertisement..

It seemed, however, that Jenny was not entirely pleased to hear her own

sentiments so frankly uttered by Mr. Wogan. Besides, he seemed to

exaggerate them, for she said with a little reluctance, "I would not say

that he was a coward."

"But I would," exclaimed Wogan, hotly. "Moreover, I do. With all my

heart I say it. A great lubberly monster of a coward. He is envious,

too, Jenny."

Jenny had by this time stopped weeping.

"Why envious?" she asked with an accent of rebellion which was very much

to Wogan's taste.

"It's as plain as the palm of my hand. Why should he make a dwarf of

you, Jenny?--for it's the truth he has done that; he has made a little

dwarf out of the finest girl in the land by robbing her of her heels."

Jenny was on the point of interrupting with some indignation, but Wogan

would not listen to her. "A dwarf," he continued, "it was your own word,

Jenny. I could say nothing to comfort you when you spoke it, for it was

so true and suitable an epithet. A little dwarf he has made of you, all

body and no legs like a bear, a dwarf-bear, of course; and why, if it is

not that he envies you your figure and is jealous of it in a mean and

discreditable way? Sure, he wants to have all the looks and to appear

quite incomparable to the eyes of his beautiful German. So he makes a

dwarf of you, a little bear dwarf--"

Jenny, however, had heard this phrase often enough by now. She

interrupted Wogan hotly, and it seemed her anger was now as much

directed against him as it had been before against O'Toole.

"He is not envious," said she. "A fine friend he has in you, I am

thinking. He has no need to be envious. Captain O'Toole could carry me

to the house in his arms if he wished, which is more than you could do

if you tried till midday to-morrow," and she turned her shoulder to

Wogan, who, in no way abashed by her contempt, cried triumphantly,-"But he didn't wish. He let you drag through the mud and snow without

so much as a patten to keep you off the ground. Why? Tell me that,

Jenny! Why didn't he wish?"




Most Popular