He was given to using rather grown-up phrases
at times. He enjoyed them. He liked this so
much that he improved upon it.

"Tell her she has been most bounteous and our
gratitude is extreme."

And then forgetting his grandeur he fell to and
stuffed himself with buns and drank milk out of
the pail in copious draughts in the manner of any
hungry little boy who had been taking unusual
exercise and breathing in moorland air and whose
breakfast was more than two hours behind him.

This was the beginning of many agreeable incidents
of the same kind. They actually awoke
to the fact that as Mrs. Sowerby had fourteen
people to provide food for she might not have
enough to satisfy two extra appetites every day.
So they asked her to let them send some of their
shillings to buy things.

Dickon made the stimulating discovery that in
the wood in the park outside the garden where
Mary had first found him piping to the wild creatures
there was a deep little hollow where you
could build a sort of tiny oven with stones and
roast potatoes and eggs in it. Roasted eggs were
a previously unknown luxury and very hot potatoes
with salt and fresh butter in them were fit for a
woodland king -- besides being deliciously satisfying.
You could buy both potatoes and eggs and

[[321]]

p320 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p321w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p322

v?