"No one kisses me."
"No one!" Donal said, feeling curious. "Has no one ever kissed you
but me?"
"No," she answered.
Donal laughed--because children always laugh when they do not know
what else to do.
"Was that why you looked as if you were frightened when I said
good-bye to you yesterday?"
"I-I didn't know," said Robin, laughing a little too--but not very
much, "I wasn't frightened. I liked you."
"I'll kiss you as often as you want me to," he volunteered nobly.
"I'm used to it--because of my mother. I'll kiss you again now."
And he did it quite without embarrassment. It was a sort of manly
gratuity.
Once Anne, with her book in her hand, came round the shrubs to
see how her charge was employing herself, and seeing her looking
at pictures with a handsomely dressed companion, she returned to
"Lady Audley's Secret" feeling entirely safe.
The lilac and the hawthorn tree continued to breathe forth warmed
scents of paradise in the sunshine, the piano organ went on playing,
sometimes nearer, sometimes farther away, but evidently finding
the neighbourhood a desirable one. Sometimes the children laughed
at each other, sometimes at pictures Donal showed, or stories he
told, or at his own extreme wit. The boundaries were removed from
Robin's world. She began to understand that there was another
larger one containing wonderful and delightful things she had
known nothing about.
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