“Not so, Monsieur,” the girl answered. “They have their babies to feed. They will come back to me when that is done,” and they did.
“Touch the squirrel,” she said to Kilgariff, “and he will fasten his long teeth in your flesh. But I may stroke his fur as much as I please. That is because he has made friends with me. And see! The robin is a wild bird. His first instinct is to keep his wings free for flying. Yet I may take him thus”—possessing herself of the bird—“and lay him on his back in my lap, so that his wings are useless to him, and he does not mind. It is because he knows me for his friend and trusts me. Ah, if only people would learn to know the wild creatures and teach them the lesson of love!”
Kilgariff felt like saying, “I know no such teacher of that lesson as you are,” but he refrained, and so it fell to Dorothy afterward to say:—
“Not many people have your gift, dear, of making other creatures love them.”
“But you have it,” the girl answered enthusiastically. “Oh, how I do love you, Dorothy!”
“I MAY STROKE HIS FUR AS MUCH AS I PLEASE.”