With his glance roving from the quiet man
to the quiet dog, he made a few tentative flutters toward the plate of
cake. Then, gathering courage from the adventure, he hopped deliberately
into the centre of the plate and began pecking greedily at the scattered
crumbs.
CHAPTER XIX
TREATS OF CONTRADICTIONS
As Molly passed down the Haunt's Walk, it seemed to her, also, that the
spring had suddenly blossomed. A moment before she had not known
that the path she trod was changing to emerald, that the meadows were
spangled with wild-flowers, that the old oaks on the lawn were blushing
in rose and silver. For weeks these miracles had happened around her,
and she had not noticed. As oblivious to them as old Adam Doolittle was,
she had remembered only that her birthday came on the seventeenth of
April, when, except for some luckless mishap, the promise of the spring
was assured.
A red-winged blackbird darted like a flame across the path in front of
her, and following it into the open, she found Kesiah gathering wild
azalea on the edge of the thicket.
At the girl's approach, the elder woman rose from her stooping posture,
and came forward, wearing a frown, which, after the first minute, Molly
saw was directed at the sunlight, not at herself.
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