Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/151

Rh the long band of green peel over her head three times, letting it fall the third. The cat pounced on it, but Mollie swept him off again.

“What is it?” cried Lettie, blushing.

“G,” said the father, winking and laughing—the mother looked daggers at him.

“It isn’t nothink,” said David naïvely, forgetting his confusion at being in the presence of a lady in his shirt. Mollie remarked in her cool way:

“It might be a ‘hess’—if you couldn’t write.”

“Or an ‘L,’&thinsp;” I added. Lettie looked over at me imperiously, and I was angry.

“What do you say, Emily?” she asked.

“Nay,” said Emily, “It’s only you can see the right letter.”

“Tell us what’s the right letter,” said George to her.

“I!” exclaimed Lettie, “who can look into the seeds of Time?”

“Those who have set ’em and watched ’em sprout,” said I.

She flung the peel into the fire, laughing a short laugh, and went on with her work.

Mrs. Saxton leaned over to her daughter and said softly, so that he should not hear, that George was pulling the flesh out of the raisins.

“George!” said Emily sharply, “You’re leaving nothing but the husks.”

He too was angry:

“&thinsp;‘And he would fain fill his belly with the husks that the swine did eat.’&thinsp;” he said quietly, taking a handful of the fruit he had picked and putting some in his mouth. Emily snatched away the basin: