"It makes us seem differ'nt, too," she said, and flushed a little, and turned to hurry on.
"I was thinkin' that too!" he cried ecstatically, overtaking her. But all that Timothy could see was tight coils of blond, crinkled hair, and a little ear and a curve of white throat, with a silver locket chain.
Down the majestic line of the elephants, towering in the apotheosis of mere bulk to preach ineffectually that spirit is apocryphal and mass alone is potent; past the panthers that sniffed as if they guessed the nearness of the grazing herd in the next pasture; past the cage in which the lioness lay snarling and baring her teeth above her cubs, so pathetically akin to the meadow in her motherhood; past unknown creatures with surprising horns and shaggy necks and lolling tongues—it was a wonderful progress. But it was as if Liva had found something more wonderful than these when, before the tigers' cage, she stepped forward, stooped a little beneath the rope, and stood erect with shining eyes.
"Look!" she said. "Look, Timmie."
She was holding a blue violet.
"In front of the tigers; it was growing!"
"Why don't you give it to me?" was Timothy's only answer.
She laid it in his hand, laughing a little at her daring.
"It won't ever be the same," she said. "Tigers have walked over it. My, ain't everything in the pasture differ'nt?"
"Just as differ'nt as differ'nt can be," Timothy admitted.