'Ah, but I like you all the better for being lame,' she said,
nestling up to me.
'But you like nimble boys,' I said, 'such as Frank.'
She looked puzzled. The anomaly of liking nimble boys and crippled
boys at the same time seemed to strike her. Yet she felt it _was_ so,
though it was difficult to explain it.
'Yes, I _do_ like nimble boys,' she said at last, plucking with her
fingers at a blade of grass she held between her teeth. 'But I think
I like lame boys better, that is if they are--if they are--_you_.'
I gave an exclamation of delight. But she was two years younger than
I, and scarcely, I suppose, understood it.
'He is very pretty,' she said meditatively, 'but he has not got
love-eyes like you and Snap, and I don't think I could love any
little boy so very, _very_ much now who wasn't lame.'
She loved me in spite of my lameness; she loved me because I was
lame, so that if I had not fallen from the cliffs, if I had sustained
my glorious position among the boys of Raxton and Graylingham as
'Fighting Hal.' I might never have won little Winifred's love.
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