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Usually at this hour the Den presented a very different appearance, the children, with slates and cahiers, working laboriously round the table, Jane Anne and mother knitting or mending furiously, Mere Riquette, the old cat, asleep before the fire, and a general schoolroom air pervading the place.
'That's Mere Riquette, you know, announced Jimbo formally to his cousin, standing between them in his village school blouse, hands tucked into his belt. 'I heard her, yes. From a distance the cat favoured him with a single comprehensive glance, then turned away and disappeared beneath the sofa. She, of course, reserved her opinion. 'It didn't REALLY hurt her. She always squeals like that.
The general talk flowed past him in a stream of sound, cut up into lengths by interrupting consonants, and half ruined by this arbitrary division; but what she said always seemed the living idea that lay behind the sound. He could not explain it otherwise. With herself, and with Riquette, and possibly with little, dreaming Minks, he sat firmly at the centre of this inner world.
Not much was said when he put his roll of paper down and leaned back in his chair. Riquette opened her eyes and blinked narrowly, then closed them again and began to purr. The ticking of the cuckoo clock seemed suddenly very loud and noticeable. 'Thank you, said Mother quietly in an uncertain kind of voice. 'The world seems very wonderful now quite different.
And, although her place was the furthest possible remove from his own, he felt her closer to him than the very children who nestled upon his knees. Riquette then finally, when all were settled, stole in to complete the circle. She planted herself in the middle of the hearth before them all, looked up into their faces, decided that all was well, and began placidly to wash her face and back.
This is Riquette! announced a big girl, hatless like the rest, with shining eyes. 'It's a she. 'And this is my secretary, Mr. Jimbo, said Rogers, breathlessly, emerging from a struggling mass. Minks and Jimbo shook hands with dignity. 'Your room is over at the Michauds, as before. 'And Mr. Mix is at the Pension there was no other room to be had 'Supper's at seven
Minks uncrossed his legs, glanced up at him a moment, then crossed them again. He made this sign, but, like Riquette, he said nothing.... The stream flowed on and on. Some one told a story. There was hushed attentive listening, followed suddenly by bursts of laughter and delight. Who told it, or what it was about, Rogers had no notion.
Riquette, on her way in, watched him from the tiles. The orchards then hid the lower floors; he passed the tinkling fountain; to the left he saw the church and the old Pension, the wistaria blossoms falling down its walls in a cascade of beauty. The Postmaster put his head out and waved his Trilby hat with a solemn smile.
They were in and out between the kitchen, corridor, and bedroom like bits of a fluid puzzle. One moment a child was beside him, and the next, just as he had a suitable sentence ready to discharge at it, the place was vacant. A minute later 'it' appeared through another door, carrying the samovar, or was on the roof outside struggling with Riquette. 'Oh, there you are! he exclaimed.
A spider instantly mounted it and rode it off. Something brushed her cheek. Riquette stood rover her, fingering her face with a soft extended paw. 'But it surely can't be time yet to get up! she murmured.
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