Well, how has the wretched, giggling, conniving
little community shown out in that light? I suppose there's one--that
larking Cradlebow--who has stood the test and come out creditably, by
reason of an uncommonly artistic shock of hair and a Raphaelite
countenance. As for me, taken in the ordinary sense, I'm no worse than a
thousand others, but I say that it was a decidedly unfortunate light to
put me in! It was a decidedly unfair light!"
"I have no wish to judge you in any light," I said, and explaining
briefly my errand to the school-house, I expressed regret at having
interrupted the fisherman's meditations, and turned to go.
"Miss Hungerford!" he exclaimed, with a gesture of whimsical force and
impatience; "it's my last chance for an explanation. Don't, for God's
sake, cut it short at this point. You might know--you might _know_, that
I'm not a bad fellow at heart. But you will never see the best side of
me--there's fate in it. I never wanted to seem specially contrite but I
must set myself jumping like a jack-in-the box for your infernally cold
amusement! I had an explanation at my tongue's end. D--n it! I don't
remember a word of it.
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