Eliot also that a Commissioner of Ambala and a Member of the
Legislative Council and a widower ought not to look like Mr. Severn. He
was too lively, too adventurous.

He turned again to the enthralling page. "The student should lay open
the theoracic cavity of the rabbit and dissect away the thymous gland
and other tissues which hide the origin of the great vessels; so as to
display the heart..."

Yearp, the vet, would show him how to do that.

iv

"His name's Benjy. He's a butterfly smut," said Jerrold.

The rabbit was quiet now. He sat in Anne's arms, couching, his forepaws
laid on her breast. She stooped and kissed his soft nose that went in
and out, pushing against her mouth, in a delicate palpitation. He was
white, with black ears and a black oval at the root of his tail. Two
wing-shaped patches went up from his nose like a moustache. That was his
butterfly smut.

"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
constant feature. The nostrils slanted slightly upward, making shadows
there. You got to know these things after watching him attentively. Anne
loved his mouth best of all, cross one minute (only never with Colin),
sweet the next, tilted at the corners, ready for his laughter.

He stood close beside her in his white fla