different mood. But Lufa seems never to change, and yet never to be in
one and the same mood. She is always in two moods, and the one mood has
nothing to do with the other. The one mood never influences, never
modifies the other. They run side by side and do not mingle. The one
mood is enthusiasm for what is not, the other indifference to what is.
She has not the faintest desire to make what is not into what is.
For love, I believe all she knows about it is, that it is a fine thing
to be loved. She loves nobody but her mother, and her only after a
fashion. I had my leg broken in the hunting-field once; my horse got up
and galloped off; I lay still. She saw what had happened, and went after
the hounds. She said she could do no good; Doctor Black was in the
field, and she went to find him. She didn't find him, and he didn't
come. I believe she forgot. But it's worth telling you, though it has
nothing to do with her, that I wasn't forgot. Old Truefoot went straight
home, and kept wheeling and tearing up and down before the windows, but,
till his own groom came, would let no one touch him. Then when he would
have led him to the stable, he set his forefeet out in front of him, and
wouldn't budge. The groom got on his back, but was scarce in the saddle
when Truefoot was oft in a bee-line over everything to where I was
lying. There's a horse for you! And there's a woman! I'm telling you all
this, mind, not to blame her, but to warn you. Whether she is to blame
or not, I don't know; I don't understand her.

"I was free to come and go, and say what I pleased, for both families
favored the match. She never objected; never said she would not have me;
said she liked me as well as any other. In a word she would have married
me, if I would have taken her. There are men, I believe, who would make
the best of such a consent, saying they were so in love with the woman
they would rejoice to take her on any terms: I don't understand that
sort of love! I would as soon think of marrying a woman I hated as a