She did not even know that this nearness
to another human creature, the exchange of companionable looks,
which were like flashes of sunlight, the mutual outbreaks of child
laughter and pleasure were happiness. To her, what she felt, the
glow and delight of it, had no name but she wanted it to go on
and on, never to be put an end to by Andrews or anyone else.
The boy Donal was not so unconscious. He had been happy all his
life. What he felt was that he had liked this little girl the
minute he saw her. She was pretty, though he thought her immensely
younger than himself, and, when she had looked up at him with her
round, asking eyes, he had wanted to talk to her and make friends.
He had not played much with boys and he had no haughty objection
to girls who liked him. This one did, he saw at once.
Through what means children so quickly convey to each other--while
seeming scarcely to do more than play--the entire history of their
lives and surroundings, is a sort of occult secret. It is not a
matter of prolonged conversation. Perhaps images created by the
briefest of unadorned statements produce on the unwritten tablets
of the child mind immediate and complete impressions. Safe as
the locked garden was, Andrews cannot have forgotten her charge
for any very great length of time and yet before Donal, hearing
his attendant's voice from her corner, left Robin to join her and
be taken home, the two children knew each other intimately.
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