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Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936

"From Mine Own People"

If you think it's so lovely, why
don't you go and see it yourself?"
She raised her face from the soft blackness of the marten skins about her
throat, and her eyes shone like diamonds. The moonlight on the gray kangaroo
fur turned it to frosted silver of the coldest.
"By Jove, Maisie, you look like a little heathen idol tucked up there." The
eyes showed that they did not appreciate the compliment. "I'm sorry," he
continued. "The Southern Cross isn't worth looking at unless someone helps you
to see. That steamer's out of hearing."
"Dick," she said quietly, "suppose I were to come to you now,--be quiet a
minute,--just as I am, and caring for you just as much as I do."
"Not as a brother, though. You said you didn't--in the Park."
"I never had a brother. Suppose I said, 'Take me to those places, and in time,
perhaps, I might really care for you,' what would you do?"
"Send you straight back to where you came from, in a cab. No, I wouldn't; I"d
let you walk. But you couldn't do it, dear. And I wouldn't run the risk. You're
worth waiting for till you can come without reservation."
"Do you honestly believe that?"
"I have a hazy sort of idea that I do. Has it never struck you in that light?"
"Ye--es.


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