"I am not very strong of the English language yet. It has so many words that are of turns incomprehensible. And when one thinks to have learned them all, behold they are quite different! To you I seem to speak it very, very far from native." "To me you seem to speak it so that it is full of music, of soft clear sounds, and melody, that no English voice can make of it. It is like the nightingale I heard when first--I mean one summer evening long ago; only your voice is sweeter." "Is it? Then I am glad, because my father hears it always. And he knows everything I think, before I have time to tell him. And he can speak the English well,--as well as those who were born in it. Seven different languages he can speak. Oh, how he is learned! To hear me talk is nothing--nothing--folly, trifles, nothing more than deficiency of wisdom, and yet of himself he thinks no more, perhaps not so much as you do." "I think nothing of myself at all. How can I, when I am with you? Yet a great many different people think highly of me, and I do my best to deserve it." This was no vain word, although it is not like my usual manner to repeat it. "I am glad of that," she answered simply, looking with kind approval at me; and I saw that her own clear nature led her to believe everything she heard. "That is the proper way for people, and as the good Lord intended. But how long we have been discoursing, without anything to be said, while the dusk of the night is approaching! It is my father beyond all doubt whom you have come by this long road to see. And he has been desiring for many days to obtain the privilege of seeing you; not only that he may return his thanks, but to learn that you did not receive a wound; for he says that the wound of a dog is very dangerous in this country." "Yes, I did receive a wound, and a bad one rather,"--how mean of me it was to speak like this! Although I was telling the simple truth, for there was a deep gash all down my left forearm. "But I would gladly receive a hundred wounds, for the sake of anything that you loved. For what am I? Who could find any good in me, compared with you, or even with _Kuban_?" But this fine appeal to the tender emotions did not obtain any success that time. If the pity, so ignobly fished for, felt any tendency to move, it took good care not to show itself in the fountains watched by me. "Mr. Cran-lee speaks much from his good-will to please. For there must be good in him, even to compare with _Kuban_, if a great many people think highly of him, and he does his best to deserve it. But is it not the best thing to hasten at once with this very bad wound to the one who can cure it? Let us waste no more time, but go at once to meet my father."