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

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She slipped easily and naturally into the quiet routine of the little household in the Grey House under the hill, till it seemed as if she had been there always. Margaret had insisted at once that there could be no 'Missing' and 'Mistering'; Dick's niece must be Joan, and her brother Paul; and the more familiar terms of address were adopted without effort on both sides.

The children helped, too. They were all in the same Society, and before a week had passed she had heard all the 'aventures,' and entered into the discovery of new ones, even contributing some herself with a zest that delighted, Paul, and made him feel wholly at his ease with her. It was all real to her; she could not otherwise have shown an interest; for sham had no part in her nature, and her love for these fatherless children was as great as his own, and similar in kind.

'You have given their "Society" a new lease of life,' she told him; 'you are an enormous addition to it.'

'Enormous—yes! 'he laughed.

'Enormously useful at the same time,' she laughed in return, 'because you not only increase their imagination; you train it, and show them how to Use it.'