look as wick as wick can be, and there are
primroses in the lanes and woods, and the seeds
we planted are up, and Dickon has brought the
fox and the crow and the squirrels and a new-born
lamb."

And then she paused for breath. The new-born
lamb Dickon had found three days before lying
by its dead mother among the gorse bushes on the
moor. It was not the first motherless lamb he
had found and he knew what to do with it. He
had taken it to the cottage wrapped in his jacket
and he had let it lie near the fire and had fed it
with warm milk. It was a soft thing with a darling
silly baby face and legs rather long for its
body. Dickon had carried it over the moor in his
arms and its feeding bottle was in his pocket with
a squirrel, and when Mary had sat under a tree
with its limp warmness huddled on her lap she
had felt as if she were too full of strange joy to
speak. A lamb -- a lamb! A living lamb who
lay on your lap like a baby!

She was describing it with great joy and Colin
was listening and drawing in long breaths of air
when the nurse entered. She started a little at
the sight of the open window. She had sat stifling
in the room many a warm day because her
patient was sure that open windows gave people
cold.

[[248]]

p247 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p248w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p249

v?