"He _is_ sweet," she said.

Colin said it after her in his shrill child's voice: "He is sweet."
Colin had a habit of repeating what you said. It was his way of joining
in the conversation.

He stretched up his hand and stroked Benjy, and Anne felt the rabbit's
heart beat sharp and quick against her breast. A shiver went through
Benjy's body.

Anne kissed him again. Her heart swelled and shook with maternal
tenderness.

"Why does he tremble so?"

"He's frightened. Don't touch him, Col-Col."

Colin couldn't see an animal without wanting to stroke it. He put his
hands in his pockets to keep them out of temptation. By the way Jerrold
looked at him you saw how he loved him.

About Colin there was something beautiful and breakable. Dusk-white
face; little tidy nose and mouth; dark hair and eyes like the minnows
swimming under the green water. But Jerrold's face was strong; and he
had funny eyes that made you keep looking at him. They were blue. Not
tiresomely blue, blue all the time, like his mother's, but secretly and
surprisingly blue, a blue that flashed at you and hid again, moving
queerly in the set squareness of his face, presenting at every turn a
different Jerrold. He had a pleasing straight up and down nose, his one