“Did you feel as if you hated people?”
“Yes,” answered Mary without any affectation. “I should have detested you if I had seen you before I saw the robin and Dickon.”
Colin put out his thin hand and touched her.
“Mary,” he said, “I wish I hadn’t said what I did about sending Dickon away. I hated you when you said he was like an angel and I laughed at you but—but perhaps he is.”
“Well, it was rather funny to say it,” she admitted frankly, “because his nose does turn up and he has a big mouth and his clothes have patches all over them and he talks broad Yorkshire, but—but if an angel did come to Yorkshire and live on the moor—if there was a Yorkshire angel—I believe he’d understand the green things and know how to make them grow and he would know how to talk to the wild creatures as Dickon does and they’d know he was friends for sure.”
“I shouldn’t mind Dickon looking at me,” said Colin; “I want to see him.”
“I’m glad you said that,” answered Mary, “because—because—”
Quite suddenly it came into her mind that this was the minute to tell him. Colin knew something new was coming.
“Because what?” he cried eagerly.
Mary was so anxious that she got up from her stool and came to him and caught hold of both his hands.