As if she had not been taught and trained not to get in older people's ways and worry them. And as if she wasn't growing older every minute herself!
"'Build it up with gold so fine--
(Ride over my Lady Leigh!)
"'Build it up with stones so strong'"--
She had her back to the door and to the mirror that reflected it, yet she knew that Nicky had come in.
"That's the song you used to sing at bed-time when you were frightened," he said.
She was sitting now in the old hen-house that was Nicky's workshop, watching him as he turned square bars of brass into round bars with his lathe. She had plates of steel to polish, and pieces of wood to rub smooth with glass-paper. There were sheets of brass and copper, and bars and lumps of steel, and great poles and planks of timber reared up round the walls of the workshop. The metal filings fell from Nicky's lathe into sawdust that smelt deliciously.
The workshop was nicer than the old apple-tree house, because there were always lots of things to do in it for Nicky.
"Nicky," she said suddenly, "do you believe in ghosts?"
"Well--" Nicky caught his bar as it fell from the lathe and examined it critically.
"You remember when I was afraid of ghosts, and you used to come and sit with me till I went to sleep?"
"Rather."