truth, thought Dickie, seeking
even now with his deprecatory smile for likenesses and words, the city
was full of beasts, silent and stealthy and fanged. That spirit, aloof,
maintained its sweet detachment. Beneath its observation Dickie fought
with a grim, unreasoning panic that was very like the fear of a man
pursued by wolves.

CHAPTER V

NEIGHBOR NEIGHBOR

Even in the shadow of after events, those first two months at Miss
Blake's ranch swam like a golden galleon through Sheila's memory. Never
had she felt such well-being of body, mind, and soul. Never had she known
such dawns and days, such dusks, such sapphire nights. Sleep came like a
highwayman to hold up an eager traveler, but came irresistibly. It caught
her up out of life as it catches up a healthy child. Never before had she
worked so heartily: out of doors in the vegetable garden; indoors in the
sunny kitchen, its windows and door open to the tonic air; never before
had she eaten so heartily. Nothing had tasted like the trout they caught
in Hidden Creek, like the juicy, sweet vegetables they picked from their
own laborious rows, like the berries they gathered in nervous
anticipation of that rival berryer, the brown bear. And Miss Blake's
casual treatment of her, half-bluff, half-mocking, her curt, good-humored
commands, her cordial bullying, were a rest to nerves more raveled than
Sheila knew from her experience in Millings. She grew rosy brown; her
hair seemed to sparkle along its crisp ripples; her little throat filled
itself out, round and firm; she walked with a spring and a swing; she
sang and whistled, no Mrs. Hudson near to scowl at her. Dish-washing was
not drudgery, cooking was a positive pleasure. Everything smelt so good.
She was always shutting her eyes to enjoy the smell of things, forgetting
to listen in order to taste thoroughly, forgetting to look in the delight
of listening to such musical silences, and forgetting even to breathe in
the rapture of sight ... Miss Blake and she put up preserves, and Sheila
had to invent jests to find some pretext for her laughter, so ridiculous
was the look of that broad square back, its hair short above the man's
flannel collar, and the apron-strings tied pertly above the very wide,
slightly worn corduroy breeches and the big boots. Sheila was always
thinking of a certain famous Puss of fairy-tale memory, and biting her
tongue to keep it from the epithet. After Hilliard gave her the black
horse and