"It would be better perhaps if I read it myself." "It will be all right in a minute," said Mary confidently.

"'Was she in a shop?
And was that really--was it really a ship that was sitting on the counter ?'" she finished with a run.
"A what ?" asked Jeremy.
"A ship--" "A ship! How could it sit on a counter ?" he asked.
"Oh no, it's a sheep.

How silly I am!" Mary exclaimed.
"You do read badly," he agreed frankly.

"I never can understand nothing." And it was at that very moment that he saw the Dog.
II He had been staring down into the garden with a gaze half abstracted, half speculative, listening with one ear to Mary, with the other to the stir of the fire, the heavy beat of the clock and the rustlings of Martha the canary.
He watched the snowy expanse of garden, the black gate, the road beyond.
A vast wave of pale grey light, the herald of approaching dusk, swept the horizon, the snowy roofs, the streets, and Jeremy felt some contact with the strange air, the mysterious omens that the first snows of the winter spread about the land.

He watched as though he were waiting for something to happen.
The creature came up very slowly over the crest of Orange Street.