Leonie of the Jungle | Page 6

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 to the other before she bent her head over the dog she had completely surrounded with her arms.
Jan Cuxson made a movement to end a situation which was bordering on cruelty when Lady Hetth anticipated him with her customary dire tactlessness.
"There now, Leonie! Now perhaps you'll be satisfied. Give Mr. Cuxson a kiss and say thank you nicely!"
Leonie would have cheerfully put her hand in the fire to serve this wonderful being who royally distributed gifts, and live ones at that, and only hesitated for the barest fraction of a second before, her face suffused with crimson, she walked up to him.
"Of course if--if you want me to--I'll--I'll kiss you," she said heroically, unconsciously squeezing the puppy under the stress of the awful moment until it yelped, "but I'd--I'd wather----" She stopped and looked up hurriedly into the understanding face of the elder man.
He nodded as he caught her eye so that she finished all in a hopeful burst.
"But I'd wather not if you don't mind!"
Lady Hetth frowned and put out her hand, murmuring something about really having to go.
"I'll send for her and Nannie,