Leonie of the Jungle | Page 6

curly head and tilted it back gently so
that the light shone into the sorrow-laden eyes encircled by shadows.
Then he smiled suddenly down at the mite, and she, perceiving that a
ray of light had suddenly pierced the all-pervading gloom, smiled back,
and catching his left hand in both of hers pressed it to her forehead.
"Good Lord!" he muttered, as a thrill ran through him at the unexpected
and oriental action.
And Fate, plucking in senile fashion at the loose ends which lay nearest
her old hand, knotted two tightly together with a bit of rare golden
strand she kept tucked away in her bodice.
"And what shall we do when you come? Can you ride? I know of a
lovely pony a little boy rides!"
Leonie shook her head mournfully, feeling unconsciously but acutely
the penalty of her sex for the first time in her life.
"I can't wide astwide," she sighed, "I haven't any bweeches. Jill and
Maudie Wetherbourne always wide in skirts. But I can swim," she
added quickly, "an' jump in out of my depff. I learnt in the baff at the
seaside!"
"Oh! come along, child, do!" broke in her aunt to her own undoing.
"Auntie jumps in too, though she says she doesn't," proceeded Leonie

in a gallant effort to shore up her family's sporting reputation.
"I do not, Leonie! I can't imagine how you ever got such an idea into
your head!"
But Leonie, nothing daunted, shook back her russet mop of hair and
gave direct answer, to the confusion of the domestic who happily stood
out of Lady Hetth's eye-range.
"But, Auntie! I've often heard Wilkins tell Nannie that you've been in
off the deep end before bweakfast! Oh! do let me hold him just for ever
such a little while!"
To save the expression of his face Jan Cuxson had bent and lifted the
pup by the scruff of its neck, and upon the piteous appeal put it
squirming and wriggling in the outstretched arms.
Great tears dripped all over the animal though Leonie stood on one foot,
bit her underlip, and squeezed the puppy to suffocation in a valiant
effort to restrain this appalling sign of weakness.
"Tell me what makes you cry like that?"
"My--my kitten was--was stwangled by--by someone this morning,
an'--an' she was all soft an'--an' fluffy like----"
The words ended in a paroxysm of sobs muffled in the puppy's coat
whereupon it ecstatically licked every visible part of the child's neck,
whilst Ellen, throwing decorum to the winds, knelt down and drew the
shaking little figure into her arms.
"Anybody in there!" suddenly and very gruffly asked Jan Cuxson,
jerking his head in the direction of the room where the few and
favoured awaited the pleasure of the specialist.
"No, Sir," replied Ellen, as she disentangled one of the puppy's claws
from the lace on Leonie's sleeve. "I'm going to call my father! I don't
think you understand your little girl very well!"

He spoke quite gently but his face was white with anger, that almost
terrifying rage which surges over and through the mentally and
physically strong at the sight, or thought, of cruelty to the small and
weak.
He whistled two exceedingly sharp notes and plunged his hands into
his pockets, where he scrunched up his keys and some loose change.
CHAPTER V
"The liberal soul shall be made fat."--The Bible.
"Well! well! well!"
Sir Jonathan walked over to the child and knelt down beside her as the
maid rose and straightened her crumpled apron.
"Let me have the doggie, darling!"
"No!--no!--no! I--I love him. He's all soft and cuddley. I want to hold
him for jus' a little, little longer!"
The child's voice was shrill with excitement as she pulled back from the
encircling arms, her lips quivering, her eyes staring distractedly first at
the younger man then at the dog.
"Would you like to have Jingles, kiddie?"
The change in the child's face was electrifying, and Sir Jonathan, rising
with his eyes fixed upon her, touched his son's arm to draw his
attention to it.
Tears like dewdrops on brown pansy petals hung heavily from the
lashes, but the corners of the mouth turned up in an adorable smile, and
waves of gratitude and delight swept up from chin to brow obliterating
the agony of the past hours.
"For _me_--to _keep_?" she whispered, as she stood on her toes in an

instinctive effort to make the body reach and unite with the mind at the
highest point of this most perfect moment, whilst her little breast
heaved with the repressed sobs of her fully laden heart.
"Yes! for keeps, little one!"
The three elders stood silently, the specialist watching intently the light
which kindled in the child's eyes as she looked from one