"
"Angry with you, Jamie?" repeated she, opening her bright eyes wide in
astonishment. "I never was angry with you in my life."
"Very well, then. But I have done something very bad, and I shall
never have peace until I have confided it all to you. You are so very
good, Mabel. I wish I could be as good as you are."
Mabel was about to interrupt me, but I prevented her, and continued:
"Last night, as I was going home from your house, the moonlight was so
strangely airy and beautiful, and without quite intending to do it, I
found myself taking a walk through the gorge. There I saw some curious
little lights dancing over the ground, and I remembered the story of
the peasant who had caught the gnome. And do you know what I did?"
Mabel was beginning to look apprehensive.
"No, I can't imagine what you did," she whispered.
"Well, I lifted my cane, struck at one of the lights, and, before I
knew it, there lay a live gnome on the ground, kicking with his small
legs."
"Jamie! Jamie!" cried Mabel, springing up and gazing at me, as if she
thought I had gone mad.
Then there was an unwelcome shuffling of feet in the hall, the door
was opened, and the professor entered with the doctor.
"Papa, papa!" exclaimed Mabel, turning to her father.
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