"You are not afraid?" she said.
"What do you think he could do to me?" I asked, laughing.
"He is so big," said Viola. "I never saw any one so big, but I think
he is like Coeur de Lion. Ah!" We both shrieked, for a most uncanny
monster was rearing up in front of us, hopping about the hall, as far
as was allowed by the chain that fastened it to the leg of a table.
"Mr. Alison brought it, ma'am," said Richardson, in a tone of disgust
and horror. "Will you have the carriage out, Miss Alison, and go
down to the Wyvern? Shuh! you brute! He shan't hurt you, my dear
ladies. I'll stand between."
We had recovered our senses, however, enough to see that it was only
a harmless kangaroo; and Dora came running out, followed by Harold,
caressing the beast, calling it poor Nanny, and asking where he
should shut it up for the night
I suggested an outhouse, and we conducted the creature thither in
procession, hearing by the way that the kangaroo's mother had been
shot, and that the animal itself, then very young, and no bigger than
a cat, had taken Harold's open shirt front for her pouch and leaped
into his bosom, and that it had been brought up to its present
stature tame at Boola Boola. Viola went with us, fed the kangaroo,
and was so much interested and delighted, that she could hardly go
away, Eustace making her a most elaborate and rather absurd bow,
being evidently much impressed by the carriage and liveried servants
who were waiting for her.
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