Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/167

 roof," and he had a desire to see Fawnie eating strawberries at the table beside him. He went, napkin in hand to the foot of the stairs.

"Fawnie," he called, "Won't you come down and have some strawberries with me? I've twice too many."

"Yes. I'll come this minute. I'm hungry. But this fonny little child he don' want to go to sleep. His eyes is as bright as bright."

"Lay him on the bed."

"Yes, I will. Now you go to sleep, Abner, like a good little boy."

"What was it you called him?" Vale asked, as she came down the stairs.

"Abner. Don' you think that is a nice name?"

"No. I think it is a milksop name. Call him something picturesque—colourful."

"Durek, then?"

"Lord, no. I'll think up a name while we eat our strawberries."

Fawnie was in love with the idea of sitting at table with Derek. She clapped her hands, and ran around the table twice, like a little brown bird fluttering about a bough, before she settled in her chair. Then she said, with hands flat on the tablecloth on either side of her plate:

"I must not spill crumbs, nor slop tea on this nice white cloth, or you'll kill me, won't you Durek?"

"I surely will. Now have some buttered toast, Fawnie, or perhaps you like scones."

"I'll have toast. We never have toast. Just Maw's bread that she bakes in the fryin' pan."

She helped herself to toast. Phœbe had buttered it so thickly that the butter oozed through to the other side. Fawnie set her teeth in it, laughing over it with narrowed eyes at Derek.