Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/163

 Nothing they did disarranged the order and shining cleanliness of the dim rooms. There were no pets about the house and the barn was too far away for the sounds from there to pierce its stillness. If only poor little Queenie were there, Delight thought, to stamp up and down singing her marching song, and now and then wanting to be hugged! If only Charley were there to trip over his own toes and make one laugh! Delight supposed she would get used to the order and quiet, but after the disorder and cheerful bustle of The Duke of York this was like being suddenly entombed.

It had been arranged that she was to pick thimbleberries, and later on plums at so much a basket and out of her earnings she was to pay for her board. When the fruit was done, if she were satisfactory, she would be paid regular wages as a domestic, that Mrs. Heaslip might not have the work of the farmhouse to do in the winter-time. The berries had been so soaked by the rain that it would take a morning's sunshine to dry them sufficiently for picking. In the meantime there was nothing to do but sit in the kitchen and watch those two grey shadows, one reading, one knitting.

She discovered that it was the Bible Mr. Heaslip read, and it was a disconcerting discovery. No one she had ever known had read the Bible. Gran had liked to read an almanack or a good tale if she could get one, or even a tract for the sake of the story. Not that she hadn't believed in God! But— "His ways is mysterious, dear child," she had said, "and we'd best not look into them too partic'lar." Yet here was a farmer reading the Bible of a morning and now and again smiling in a triumphant way, as though he and God had a secret between them.

It was ten o'clock. Would it never be noon? Delight longed to go out and wander about but the place held