wo
month' ago--an' I heard folk tell as they was bandy an' knock-kneed
both at th' same time. Look at 'em now!"

Susan Sowerby laughed a comfortable laugh.

"They're goin' to be fine strong lad's legs in a bit," she said. "Let
him go on playin' an' workin' in the garden an' eatin' hearty an'
drinkin' plenty o' good sweet milk an' there'll not be a finer pair i'
Yorkshire, thank God for it."

She put both hands on Mistress Mary's shoulders and looked her little
face over in a motherly fashion.

"An' thee, too!" she said. "Tha'rt grown near as hearty as our
'Lisabeth Ellen. I'll warrant tha'rt like thy mother too. Our Martha
told me as Mrs. Medlock heard she was a pretty woman. Tha'lt be like a
blush rose when tha' grows up, my little lass, bless thee."

She did not mention that when Martha came home on her "day out" and
described the plain sallow child she had said that she had no
confidence whatever in what Mrs. Medlock had heard. "It doesn't stand
to reason that a pretty woman could be th' mother o' such a fou' little
lass," she had added obstinately.

Mary had not had time to pay much attention to her changing face. She
had only known that she looked "different" and seemed to have a great
deal more hair and that it was growing very fast. But remembering her
pleasure in looking at the Mem Sahib in the past she was glad to hear
that she might some day look like her.

Susan Sowerby went round their garden with them and was told the whole
story of it and shown every bush and tree which had come alive. Colin
walked on one side of her and Mary on the other. Each of them kept
looking up at her comfortable rosy face, secretly curious about the
delightful feeling she gave them--a sort of warm, supported feeling.
It seemed as if she understood them as Dickon understood his
"creatures." She stooped over the flowers and talked about them as if
they were children. Soot followed her and once or twice cawed at her
and flew upon her shoulder as if it were Dickon's. When they told her
about the robin and the first flight of the young ones she laughed a
motherly little mellow laugh in her throat.

"I suppose learnin' 'em to fly is like learnin' children to walk, but
I'm feared I should be all in a worrit if mine had wings instead o'
legs," she said.

It was because she seemed such a wonderful woman in her nice moorland
cottage way that at last she was told about the Magic.

"Do you believe in Magic?" asked Coli