Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/107

 ting intimately together in the lamplight, and once a young man playing the flute to an old, old deaf lady who leaned forward with one hand to her ear to listen. They lingered as long as they dared at that window.

"Isn't it lovely out, tonight, May?" whispered Delight, as though she feared the houses would hear her. "Shouldn't you like to run and run through the rain like a little old fox till you'd come to your burrow, an' then run down into it with your mate and your cubs, and all snuggle up together, nice an' dry and warm? May, you'd ought to hear the funny things Jimmy was telling me about the crows that live in the woods beyond the lagoon. He took me there to see them—was it last night—or this morning? I'm getting all mixed up with the time. Well, d'ye know, Jimmy can tell every dodge they're up to. They've got girls, and they call 'em by name—Kate, Maggie, an' all the rest. And they're terrible fond of 'em, too. . . . I say, May, I believe I'm getting comical like Jimmy, listening to his talk and all. But, honestly, shouldn't you like to be a fox—a real she fox, I mean, not an old boy fox—running through this warm rain?"

"You are ratty," said May. "No, I don't want to be a fox. I'd rather be who we are, and meet a couple o' nice boys and 'ave a bit of a lark wiv them. We could do it, too, if it wasn't for me teeth. A girl can't be 'arf jolly when she knows 'er smile's a mockery."

Delight squeezed her arm. "What's in this window?" she breathed. "Let's look in here. It's where the schoolmaster lives. Jimmy told me one night, I remember, because he said he wished he had his learning. There he sits at his table, studying."

There was a green shade on the lamp in the room. There were small, black-framed pictures on the wall, and,