“‘Snowdrop tries to enter into our ways, as they always do; but, of course, it would be a little awkward if she played tricks. How alarmed they would all be if she took it into her head to walk about on two legs, like everybody else.’” “Nonsense!” ejaculated Colonel Crane. “Can’t be a child--talking about it walking about on two legs.” “After all,” said Pierce thoughtfully, “a little girl does walk about on two legs.” “Bit startling if she walked about on three,” said Crane. “If my learned brother will allow me,” said Hood, in his forensic manner, “would he describe the fact of a little girl walking on two legs as alarming?” “A little girl is always alarming,” replied Pierce. “I’ve come to the conclusion myself,” went on Hood, “that Snowdrop must be a pony. It seems a likely enough name for a pony. I thought at first it was a dog or a cat but alarming seems a strong word even for a dog or a cat sitting up to beg. But a pony on its hind legs might be a little alarming, especially when you’re riding it. Only I can’t fit this view in with the next sentence: ‘I’ve taught her to reach down the things I want.’” “Lord!” cried Pierce. “It’s a monkey!” “That,” replied Hood, “had occurred to me as possibly explaining the weird Asiatic atmosphere. But a monkey on two legs is even less unusual than a dog on two legs. Moreover, the reference to Asiatic mystery seems really to refer to something else and not to any animal at all. For he ends up by saying: ‘I feel now as if my mind were moving in much larger and more ancient spaces of time or eternity; and as if what I thought at first was an oriental atmosphere was only an atmosphere of the orient in the sense of dayspring and the dawn. It has nothing to do with the stagnant occultism of decayed Indian cults; it is something that unites a real innocence with the immensities, a power as of the mountains with the purity of snow. This vision does not violate my own religion, but rather reinforces it; but I cannot help feeling that I have larger views. I hope in two senses to preach liberty in these parts. So I may live to falsify the proverb after all.’ “That,” added Hood, folding up the letter, “is the only sentence in the whole thing that conveys anything to my mind. As it happens, we have all three of us lived to falsify proverbs.” Hilary Pierce had risen to his feet with the restless action that went best with his alert figure. “Yes,” he said; “I suppose we can all three of us say we have lived for adventures, or had some curious ones anyhow. And to tell you the truth, the adventure feeling has come on me very strong this very minute. I’ve got the detective fever about that parson of yours. I should like to get at the meaning of that letter, as if it were a cipher about buried treasure.”