Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/105

 Charley shortly entered the scullery with the impressive air of a churchwarden.

A gentle April rain was falling on Brancepeth, dimming the lighted windows, seeming to draw the houses more closely together in a delicate net of intimacy. The lights on the wharves and on the boats anchored in the little bay were blurred like drowsy eyes, and over where the lagoon slept, was blackness indeed, and in the wood where the crows crowded on moist pine branches, was blackness still more profound.

The two girls might have been in bed, sleeping, as Annie and Pearl were. They must have needed rest, for, though they were young, they had danced all the night before and worked all day. But May could not settle down; she wanted the air, and to feel the sweet rain on her face after being swathed in a poultice for, it seemed, a lifetime. And she wanted Delight with her. She could not make enough of the girl. Delight was glad in her heart that they had had the fight, for since then they had been more happily intimate than ever before. Why, when they were in their room, changing to their outdoor things, May had simply grabbed her in her arms and kissed her for nothing at all. Delight thought that if Granny could look down and see her little girl out walking so happy with a friend like May, instead of a man, she would have been very pleased with her. Granny seemed very near tonight. Delight could almost feel her hand pressing her arm as she walked rather heavily beside her. Not that Granny was weak, but just a little stiff with the rheumaticks, and, oh, the rosy cheeks and lovely blue eyes of her! Delight gave a little gulp.