Peter's Goat
Now, strange to tell, the same idea had come at exactly the same time into Maimie’s head. ‘I should like to,’ she answered, ‘but will there be room in your boat for two?’
‘If you squeeze close,’ he said eagerly.
‘Perhaps the birds would be angry?’
He assured her that the birds would love to have her, though I am not so certain of it myself. Also that there were very few birds in winter. ‘Of course they might want your clothes,’ he had to admit rather falteringly.
She was somewhat indignant at this.
‘They are always thinking of their nests,’ he said apologetically, ‘and there are some bits of you’—he stroked the fur on her pelisse—‘that would excite them very much.’
‘They shan’t have my fur,’ she said sharply.
‘No,’ he said, still fondling it, however, ‘no. O Maimie,’ he said rapturously, ‘do you know why I love you? It is because you are like a beautiful nest.’
Somehow this made her uneasy. ‘I think you are speaking more like a bird than a boy now,’ she said, holding back, and indeed he was even looking113
