You might fancy them fractious children, always crying for the
other child's bun. There is really no reason for its being such a
good field, except its own pluck. It faces the east, and the wood
for half the day hides it from the sun; but it makes the best of
everything, and even on the greyest day it seems to be smiling at
you. 'Some happy-hearted Mother Thing--a singer of love songs the
while she toiled,' he will have it, must lie sleeping there. By-the-
bye, what a jolly field Janie would make! Don't you think so, Dad?
"What the dickens, Dad, have you done to Veronica? She wanders about
everywhere with an exercise book in her hand, and when you say
anything to her, instead of answering you back, she sits plump down
wherever she is and writes for all she's worth. She won't say what
she's up to. She says it's a private matter between you and her, and
that later on things are going to be seen in their true light. I
told her this morning what I thought of her for forgetting to feed
the donkey. I was prepared, of course, for a hundred explanations:
First, that she had meant to feed the donkey; secondly, that it
wasn't her place to feed the donkey; thirdly, that the donkey would
have been fed if circumstances over which she had no control had not
arisen rendering it impossible for her to feed the donkey; fourthly,
that the morning wasn't the proper time to feed the donkey, and so
on.
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