She needs no help from us!'
They sped across to the carpenter's house among the vineyards.
'What a splendour!' gasped the child as they went. 'My starlight seems
quite dim beside hers.'
'She's an old hand at the game,' he replied, noticing the tinge of
disappointment in her thought. 'With practice, you know----'
'And Mummy must be pretty tough,' she interrupted with a laugh, her
elastic nature recovering instantly.
'----with practice, I was going to say, your atmosphere will get
whiter too until it simply shines. That's why the saints have halos.'
But Monkey did not hear this last remark, she was already in her
father's bedroom, helping Jinny.
Here there were no complications, no need for assistance from a Sweep,
or Gardener, or Lamplighter. It was a case for pulling, pure and
simple. Daddy was wumbled, nothing more. Body, mind, and heart were
all up-jumbled. In making up the verse about the starlight he had
merely told the truth--about himself. The poem was instinctive and
inspirational confession. His atmosphere, as he lay there, gently
snoring in his beauty sleep, was clear and sweet and bright, no
darkness in it of grey or ugliness; but its pattern was a muddle, or
rather there were several patterns that scrambled among each other for
supremacy. Lovely patterns hovered just outside him, but none of them
got really in.
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