Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/168

 "What you going to call our baby?" she demanded with her mouth full.

"I have it. Buckskin. That's a jolly name. It means something. Suits a little Indian boy. Makes you think of Nipigon, Timagami, wild things, and the smell of gunpowder and wood smoke. Abner makes you think of hair oil, creaky boots, and Sunday-school leaflets, eh?"

Fawnie stared at him with the expression of an intelligent child. "I understand," she said. "But I think he'll be an awful bad little boy if we call him Buckskin. . . . Buckskin Vale, h'm . . ." She stopped eating and stared straight before her, as though savouring the name.

Phœbe, coming in with a jug of hot water to replenish the pot, started in amazement at seeing Fawnie seated at the table with Vale. Catching her toe on the doorsill she stumbled into the room slopping the water as she came. A drop fell on Jock's long feathered tail that projected from under the table and he fled howling out of doors. Derek looked up crossly at her, and Fawnie said:

"Say, you're awful stupid this morning, Phœbe. Haven't you ever seen a lady and gentleman eatin' hot toast before?"

"A gentleman must have a margin, if it's ever so, as I said to Hughie," declared Phœbe, addressing Vale, "but the margin's getting wider and wider."

Tis not so wide as a church door nor so deep as a well but 'twill suffice'," boomed Snailem from the kitchen. "Which is from Shakespeare as always hits the mark."

A pleasant voice came from outside. The owner of it was sympathizing deeply with Jock who wriggled on his belly towards someone who approached. Vale leaned back in his chair to look through the open door. He saw Mr. Ramsey pushing his bicycle over the flagstones. He stared. Stupefied, at the advancing figure which in grey Norfolk