and he smiled at her between his tufts of hair. It was dreadful to
think that Mark and Dank and Roddy didn't like him. It might hurt him
so much that he would never be happy again.

About Pidgeon she was not quite sure. Pidgeon was very ugly. He had
long stiff legs, and a long stiff face finished off with a fringe of
red whiskers that went on under his chin. Still, it was not nice to
think of Pidgeon being unhappy either. But Mrs. Fisher was large and
rather like Aunt Bella, only softer and more bulging. Her round face
had a high red polish on it always, and when she saw you coming her
eyes twinkled, and her red forehead and her big cheeks and her mouth
smiled all together a fat, simmering smile. When you got to the black
and white marble tiles you saw her waiting for you at the foot of the
stairs.

She wanted to ask Mrs. Fisher if it was true that Aunt Bella would be
ill if she were naughty; but a squeezing and dragging came under her
waist whenever she thought about it, and that made her shy and ashamed.
It went when they left her to play by herself on the lawn in front of
the house.

Aunt Bella's house was enormous. Two long rows of windows stared out at
you, their dark green storm shutters folded back on the yellow brick
walls. A third row of little squeezed-up windows and little squeezed-up
shutters blinked in the narrow space under the roof. All summer a sweet
smell came from that side of the house where cream-coloured roses hung
on the yellow walls between the green shutters. There was a cedar tree
on the lawn and a sun-dial and a stone fountain. Goldfish swam in the
clear greenish water. The flowers in the round beds were stiff and
shining, as if they had been cut out of tin and freshly painted. When