full flight

"Arent't you the grown-up woan of twelve years of age, and don't you know that everyone talks about everyone else? That's what peopledo in a village... You're not going to get all upset over that, are you?"

"No, but... "

Sister Madeleine seized the word No. "There, I knew you weren't. You see, it is a funny thing when people go miles and miles away to big cities where they know nobody and nobody knows them. The whole thing is turned around. It's then they want people to be all interested in them and their doing. We are funny sorts of people, the human race... "

"It's just that.. " Kit began desperately. She didn't want to discuss the human race.

She wanted Sister Madeleine to tell her that everything was all right, that her mother wasn't unhapy or wild or bad, or whatever it was that Clio was suggesting. But she didn't get far.

Sister Madeleine was in full flight. "I knew you'd agree with me, and one of the funniest things - animals are much more simple. I don't know why the Lord thought that we were so special. We're not nearly as loving and good as the animal kingdom."

The old dog, Whiskers, that Sister Madeleine had rescued when someone had tried to drown him in a bag, looked up when she said this. Whiskers seemed to understand when she was saying something good about animals. It was as if the tone of her voice changed. "Whiskers agrees with me. And how's Farouk, that fine noble cat of yours?"

"He is fine, Sister Madeleine. Why don't you come and see him?"

"Sure you know me. I'm not one to be visiting people's houses. All I want to know is that he's well and happy, and stalking around Lough Glass as if he owned it."

There they were, talking about Farouk and Whiskers and the human race, and it would be rude now to go back to the reason why Kit had walked down the leady lane to see Sister Madeleine on her own.

******