dying; I don't like it. Let us talk about living.
Let us talk and talk about Dickon. And then
we will look at your pictures."

It was the best thing she could have said. To
talk about Dickon meant to talk about the moor
and about the cottage and the fourteen people who
lived in it on sixteen shillings a week -- and the
children who got fat on the moor grass like the
wild ponies. And about Dickon's mother -- and
the skipping-rope -- and the moor with the sun on
it -- and about pale green points sticking up out
of the black sod. And it was all so alive that
Mary talked more than she had ever talked before
-- and Colin both talked and listened as he had
never done either before. And they both began
to laugh over nothings as children will when they
are happy together. And they laughed so that
in the end they were making as much noise as if
they had been two ordinary healthy natural ten-year-old
creatures -- instead of a hard, little, unloving
girl and a sickly boy who believed that he
was going to die.

They enjoyed themselves so much that they forgot
the pictures and they forgot about the time.
They had been laughing quite loudly over Ben
Weatherstaff and his robin and Colin was actually
sitting up as if he had forgotten about his weak
back when he suddenly remembered something.

[[185]]

p184 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p185w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p186

v?