Ah!
you may laugh; but that is only because I have not explained myself
properly."
"I was only smiling to think how ambitious any one might suppose you were
who did not know you."
"I don't see any ambition in it--I don't think of the station--I only want
sorely to see the 'What's resisted' of Burns, in order that I may have more
charity for those who seem to me to have been the cause of such infinite
woe and misery."
"'What's done we partly may compute;
But know not what's resisted,'"
repeated Frank musingly. After some time he began again:
"But, Maggie, I don't give up this wish of mine to go to Australia--Canada,
if you like it better--anywhere where there is a newer and purer state of
society."
"The great objection seems to be your duty, as an only child, to your
father. It is different to the case of one out of a large family."
"I wish I were one in twenty, then I might marry where I liked to-morrow."
"It would take two people's consent to such a rapid measure," said Maggie,
laughing. "But now I am going to wish a wish, which it won't require a
fairy godmother to gratify. Look, Frank, do you see in the middle of that
dark brown purple streak of moor a yellow gleam of light? It is a pond, I
think, that at this time of the year catches a slanting beam of the sun. It
cannot be very far off. I have wished to go to it every autumn. Will you go
with me now? We shall have time before tea.
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