Читать книгу The Complete Works of Algernon Blackwood. Novels, Short Stories, Horror Classics, Occult & Supernatural Tales, Plays онлайн

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He went on picking at the soft ditches between the ridges of dirty brown without answering for a moment.

'Yes,' he said presently, in the slow manner of a man who weighs his words; 'very glad indeed. It's increased my interest in life. It's made me happier, and healthier, and wealthier, and all the rest of it—and wiser too.' He bent, frowning, over the ditches.

'It was all your own fault, you know, that we didn't get you sooner. Oh, years ago—ever so many.'

'But I was in the backwoods, Nixie.'

'That made no difference,' she answered promptly. 'If you had written to us, as mother often asked, we should have noticed at once what you were.'

'How could that possibly be?' he objected, still without looking up.

'Of course!' was the overwhelming reply.

'Oh, come now,' he said, staring at her solemnly over the table; 'I admit your penetration is pretty keen, but I doubt that'

She returned his gaze with an expression of grave, almost contemptuous surprise, tossing her hair back impatiently with a jerk from her face. She had finally established the kittens, Zezette and Sambo, in a sleepy heap just where she wanted them on the top of the squirrel's cage.