'
They all looked down; the milk had splashed from the cloth and fallen
upon the toe of his big mountain boots. It made a pretty, white star.
Riquette was daintily lapping it up with her long pink Tongue. Ray by
ray the star set in her mysterious interior.
'Riquette must come too,' said Rogers gravely. 'She's full of white
starlight now.'
And Jimbo left his chair and went seriously over to the book-shelf
above Mother's sofa-bed to arrange the signals. For between the
tightly-wedged books he had inserted all the available paper-knives
and book-markers he could find to represent railway-signals. They
stuck out at different angles. He altered several, putting some up,
some down, and some at right angles.
'The line's all clear for to-night,' he announced to Daddy with a
covert significance he hardly grasped himself, then coming back to
home-made jam and crusty village bread.
Jane Anne caught her father's answering glance-mysterious, full of
unguessed meanings. 'Oh, excuse me, Mother,' she said, feeling the
same thing in herself and a little frightened; 'but I do believe
they're conspiring, aren't they?'
And Mother gave a sudden start, whose cause she equally failed to
analyse. 'Hush, dear,' she said. 'Don't criticise your elders, and
when you do, don't use long words you cannot possibly understand.
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