"
"It is most misconvenient at least," said I; "and I think my father
(honest man!) must have been wool-gathering to learn me Latin in
the place of it. But you see I do the best I can, and just stand
up like Lot's wife and let them hammer at me."
"Do you know what makes me smile?" said she. "Well, it is this. I
am made this way, that I should have been a man child. In my own
thoughts it is so I am always; and I go on telling myself about
this thing that is to befall and that. Then it comes to the place
of the fighting, and it comes over me that I am only a girl at all
events, and cannot hold a sword or give one good blow; and then I
have to twist my story round about, so that the fighting is to
stop, and yet me have the best of it, just like you and the
lieutenant; and I am the boy that makes the fine speeches all
through, like Mr. David Balfour."
"You are a bloodthirsty maid," said I.
"Well, I know it is good to sew and spin, and to make samplers,"
she said, "but if you were to do nothing else in the great world, I
think you will say yourself it is a driech business; and it is not
that I want to kill, I think.
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