"
We had reached the yard. Nathaniel was standing with his head
stretched out above the closed half of his stable door. I noticed
points of resemblance between him and Veronica herself: there was
about him a like suggestion of resignation, of suffering virtue
misunderstood; his eye had the same wistful, yearning expression with
which Veronica will stand before the window gazing out upon the
purple sunset, while people are calling to her from distant parts of
the house to come and put her things away. Miss Janie, bending over
him, asked him to kiss her. He complied, but with a gentle,
reproachful look that seemed to say, "Why call me back again to
earth?"
It made me mad with him. I was wrong in thinking Miss Janie not a
pretty girl. Hers is that type of beauty that escapes attention by
its own perfection. It is the eccentric, the discordant, that
arrests the roving eye. To harmony one has to attune oneself.
"I believe," said Miss Janie, as she drew away, wiping her cheek,
"one could teach that donkey anything."
Apparently she regarded willingness to kiss her as indication of
exceptional amiability.
"Except to work," commented her father. "I'll tell you what I'll
do," he said. "If you take that donkey off my hands and promise not
to send it back again, why, you can have it."
"For nothing?" demanded Janie woefully.
"For nothing," insisted her father. "And if I have any argument,
I'll throw in the cart.
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