Framley Parsonage

Chapter 26

Impulsive

I trust my readers will all remember how Puck the pony was beaten

during that drive to Hogglestock. It may be presumed that Puck

himself on that occasion did not suffer much. His skin was not so

soft as Mrs. Robarts's heart. The little beast was full of oats and

all the good things of this world, and therefore, when the whip

touched him, he would dance about and shake his little ears, and run

on at a tremendous pace for twenty yards, making his mistress think

that he had endured terrible things. But, in truth, during those

whippings Puck was not the chief sufferer. Lucy had been forced to

declare--forced by the strength of her own feelings, and by the

impossibility of assenting to the propriety of a marriage between

Lord Lufton and Miss Grantly--, she had been forced