"I've got the grey doe, and the fawn, and the lop-ear," he said.

"Oh--I _shall_ love him."

"You mustn't hold him too tight. And you must be careful not to touch
his stomach. If you squeeze him there he'll die."

"Yes. If you squeeze his stomach he'll die," Colin cried excitedly.

"I'll be ever so careful."

They put him down, and he ran violently round and round, drumming with
his hind legs on the floor of the shed, startling the does that couched,
like cats, among the lettuce leaves and carrots.

"When the little rabbits come half of them will be yours, because he'll
be their father."

"Oh--"

For the first time since Friday week Anne was happy. She loved the
rabbit, she loved little Colin. And more than anybody or anything she
loved Jerrold.

Yet afterwards, in her bed in the night nursery, when she thought of her
dead mother, she lay awake crying; quietly, so that nobody could hear.


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