ainst the baby throat or the white collar as he played at
keeping step with them; and no words can describe the shrewd subtlety,
the ingenuous malice, the fierce intensity which lighted up that pallid
little face with the faint circles already round the eyes. Truly there
was a man's power of passion in the strange-looking, delicate little
girl. Here were traces of suffering or of thought in her; and which
is the more certain token of death when life is in blossom--physical
suffering, or the malady of too early thought preying upon a soul as yet
in bud? Perhaps a mother knows. For my own part, I know of nothing more
dreadful to see than an old man's thoughts on a child's forehead; even
blasphemy from girlish lips is less monstrous.

The almost stupid stolidity of this child who had begun to think
already, her rare gestures, everything about her, interested me. I
scrutinized her curiously. Then the common whim of the observer drew
me to compare her with her brother, and to note their likeness and
unlikeness.

Her brown hair and dark eyes and look of precocious power made a rich
contrast with the little one's fair curled head and sea-green eyes and
winning helplessness. She, perhaps, was seven or eight years of age; the
boy was full four years younger. Both children were dressed alike; but
here again, looking closely, I noticed a difference. It was very slight,
a little thing enough; but in the light of after events I saw that it
meant a whole romance in the past, a whole tragedy to come. The little
brown-haired maid wore a linen collar with a plain hem, her brother's
was edged with dainty embroidery, that was all; but therein lay the
confession of a heart's secret, a tacit preference which a child can
read in the mother's inmost soul as clearly as if the spirit of God
revealed it. The fair-haired child, careless and glad, looked almost
like a girl, his skin was so fair and fresh, his movements so graceful,
his look so sweet; while his older sister, in spite of her energy, in
spite of the beauty of her features and her dazzling complexion, looked
like a sickly little boy. In her bright eyes there was none of the humid
softness which lends such charm to children's faces; they seemed, like
courtiers' eyes, to be dried by some inner fire; and in her pallor there
was a certain swarthy olive tint, the sign of vigorous character. Twice
her little brother came to her, holding out a tiny hunting-horn with a
touching charm, a winn