Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/134

 had had enough of feminine emotion—he wriggled out of his mistress' arms, flopped to the ground, shook himself, and, advancing to Peter, smelt his boots.

“He likes you. I'm so glad—he only does that to people he likes, and he's very particular.” The small girl flung her hair back, smiled at Peter, and sat down on the grass.

“It may be rather damp,” Peter said, feeling very old and cautious and thinking that she really was the oddest child he'd ever seen in his life. “It's only March you know.”

“It's nothing to do with months, it's whether it's rained or not—and it hasn't—sit down with me. Old Jackson won't be here for ages.”

Peter sat down. The puppy was a charming specimen of its kind—it had enormous ears, huge flat feet, and a round fat body like a very small barrel. It was very fond of Peter, and licked his cheek and his hands, and finally dragged off his cap, imagined it a rabbit, and bit it with a great deal of savagery and good-humour.

There followed conversation.

“I like you most awfully. I like your neck and your eyes and your hair—it's stiff, like my father's. My name is Clare Elizabeth Rossiter. What's yours?”

“Peter Westcott.”

“Do you live here?”

“No—a good long way away—by the sea.”

“Oh, I'm staying at Kenwyn—my uncle lives at Kenwyn, but I live in London with father and mother and Aunt Grace—it's nice here. I think you're such a nice boy. Will you come and see father and mother in London?”

Peter smiled. It would not be the thing for some one in a bookshop to go and call on the parents of any one who could afford Crumpet and Miss Jackson, but the thought of London, the very name of it, sent his blood tingling to his face.

“Perhaps we shall meet,” he said. “I'm going to London soon.”

“Oh! are you? Oh! How nice! Then, of course, you will come to tea. Every one comes to tea.”

Crumpet, tired of the rabbit, worn out with adventure and peril, struggled into Peter's lap and slumbered with one ear lying back across his eyes. The sun slipped down upon