A flight of steps descended from the
drawing-room to the garden, and as she knelt on her mat in the cool
room it was easy to keep an eye on him. Now and then she gazed out
into the sunshine and called; and the boy stopped running about and
nodded back, or shouted the report of some fresh discovery.
By-and-by a sulphur butterfly excited him so that he must run up the
broad stone steps with the news. The woman laughed, looking at his
flushed face, then down at his shoe-strings, which were untied: and
then she jumped up, crying out sharply--"Stand still, child--stand
still a moment!"
She might well stare. Her boy stood and smiled in the sun, and his
shadow lay on the whitened steps. Only the silhouette was not that
of a little breeched boy at all, but of a little girl in petticoats;
and it wore long curls, whereas the charwoman's son was
close-cropped.
The woman stepped out on the terrace to look closer. She twirled her
son round and walked him down into the garden, and backwards and
forwards, and stood him in all manner of positions and attitudes, and
rubbed her eyes. But there was no mistake: the shadow was that of a
little girl.
She hurried over her charing, and took the boy home for his father to
see before sunset. As the matter seemed important, and she did not
wish people in the street to notice anything strange, they rode back
in an omnibus. They might have spared their haste, however, as the
cab-driver did not reach home till supper-time, and then it was found
that in the light of a candle, even when stuck inside a
carriage-lamp, their son cast just an ordinary shadow.
Pages:
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172