Leonie of the Jungle

Book excerpt: 'Leonie of the Jungle' is an adventure novel set in India, written by Joan Conquest. Jonathan Cuxson, Jr., a brain surgeon and one of the main characters of the book, discovered an abandoned orphan one day. He lifted the child on to his knee, frowning at the weight, and smoothed the tangled mass of curls away from the low forehead with a touch which caused her to make a sound 'twixt sob and sigh, and to lie back against the broad shoulder. It was a long and disjointed story, told in the inconsequent fashion of a child of seven unused to converse with her elders; and continually interrupted by the aunt, who, fretful and dying for her tea, jingled her distracting bracelets and chains, fidgeted with the Anglo-Indian odds-and-ends of her raiment, and disconcerted the child by the futile verbal proddings; which are as bad for the infant mind as the criminal attempts to force a baby to use its legs are to the infant body.