"Looking!"
She stopped. She tried to hide the mellowness by swallowing it.
"Yes," said Tim. "There's some one hiding. It's Hide-and-Seek, you
see. We're the seekers. It's enormous."
"Will you come with us and look too?" suggested Judy simply. Then
while Aunt Emily's lips framed themselves as from long habit into a
negative or a reprimand, the child continued before either reached
delivery: "There are heaps of signs about; anything lovely or
beautiful is a sign--a sign that we're getting warm. We've each got
ours. Mine's air. What's yours, Aunty?"
Aunt Emily stared at them; her bewilderment increased apparently; she
swallowed hard again. The children returned her stare, gazing
innocently into her questioning eyes as if she were some strange bird
at the Zoo. The new feeling of kinship with her grew stronger in their
hearts. They knew quite well she was looking just as they were;
_really_ she longed to play their game of Hide-and-Seek. She was very
ignorant, of course, they saw, but they were ready and willing to
teach her how to play, and would make it easy for her into the
bargain.
"Signs!" she repeated, in a voice that was gentler than they had ever
known it.
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