"
In this conclusion she was altogether wrong. Scudamore could have made
it, and would have made it gladly, with bright love to help him. But
Carne never could, and would have scorned the pleasant task. It was
Charron, the lively Frenchman, who, with the aid of old Jerry, had
achieved this pretty feat, working to relieve his dull detention, with
a Frenchman's playful industry and tasteful joy in nature. But Carne was
not likely to forego this credit.
"I think I have done it pretty well," he said, in reply to her smile of
admiration; "with such scanty materials, I mean, of course. And I shall
think I have done it very well indeed, if you say that you like it, and
crown it with new glory by sitting for a moment in its unpretentious
shade. If your brother comes down, as I hope he will, next week, I shall
beg him to come and write a poem here. The place is fitter for a poet
than a prosy vagabond like me."
"It is very hard that you should be a--a wanderer, I mean," Dolly
answered, looking at him with a sweet thrill of pity; "you have done
nothing to deserve it. How unfairly fortune has always treated you!"
"Fortune could make me a thousand times more than the just compensation
even now, if she would. Such a glorious return for all my bitter losses
and outcast condition, that I should--but it is useless to think of such
things, in my low state. The fates have been hard with me, but never
shall they boast that they drove me from my pure sense of honour.
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