“I see that I should get on much better with your father than you do,” he said. “We should have a great deal in common.”
“He has made me hate birds,” said Anne. “Sometimes I think I should like to wear a bird in my hat.”
“You feel about birds what I feel about love and about religion, I suppose,” said Richard.
“My father has got birds and religion all mixed up, somehow,” said Anne, but when he asked her to explain, all she could say was: “I don’t understand it, and I can’t explain it, but I know I am right. It is difficult to tell often of which he is speaking.”
“That seems rather a beautiful confusion to me,” said Richard. “Just listen for a moment to the pigeons in the dove house and you will feel inclined to it yourself.”
“I only hate them because I am wicked and selfish,” said Anne. “I am not going to sacrifice all my life to beautiful things. Father can only see beauty in a chaffinch or a wagtail; I might be beautiful too, but he would never notice it.”
Richard laughed at this outburst. “As pretty as a wagtail,” he mused, screwing up his eyes, and teasing her. “That is flying rather high, isn’t it?”
“I don’t see why a human being shouldn’t be as beautiful as a bird,” said Anne seriously, at which her companion laughed more than ever.
“Perhaps not,” he said. “Still you don’t really hope that anyone should ever say to you: ‘Miss Dunnock, you are as pretty as a hedge-sparrow.’ I, of course, with my long nose, am rather like a snipe.” Then, changing his tone, he went on: “You are more like a heron than a hedge-sparrow: a tall ghostly figure seen by moonlight standing in the reeds at the water’s edge. The heron’s hair is always flying loose like yours; he tries in vain to keep it up with fish bones.”
“I am going to cut all my hair off!” cried Anne savagely.