While she was so employed I informed her of my fight with the otter
and the loss of my dog, and her gentle sympathy was sweet to my
troubled spirit. And then I told her where she might find the
otter's skin, and how she should make use of it.
"There, now," she said, putting a pin through the bandage and
rising to her feet, "that will serve till you get home."
"It's real kind of you to do this for me, Thora," I said, touched
by the girl's tenderness, "and I will not forget this. No, not as
long as I live;" and I think there was a tremor in my voice--at
least I felt what I said.
"But," I continued, "what will they say to you at Crua Breck, if
they hear you have done this thing?"
"Halcro, I have done nothing but what I have been told to do.
Before you knocked at the door, my father was saying we should aye
'do as we'd be done by.' In that I have obeyed him. But I must run
back now, or they will miss me. See you give care to the foot. Fare
ye well!"
And with that she hastened back to the farm, leaving me to ponder
over her manner of applying that golden rule which her father had,
while teaching it, so grievously failed to practise.
I made my way onward to Lyndardy--sadly, it is true, but with a
strange new feeling in my heart for this blue-eyed maiden who, in
defiance of her family, had helped me in my weariness and distress.
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