window of the place outside our room, where the hay and bags of flour
are." (I think I forgot to say that to get to our room we had to cross
at the top of the stair a sort of landing, along one side of which, as
Nora said, great bags of flour or grain and trusses of hay were ranged;
this place had a window with a somewhat more extended view than that of
our room.) "I went there, still without my boot, and I knelt in front of
the window some time, looking up the rough path, and wishing you would
come. But I was not the least dull or lonely. I was only a little tired.
At last I got tired of watching there, and I thought I would come back
to our room and look for something to do. The door was not closed, but
I think I had half drawn it to as I came out. I pushed it open and went
in, and then--I seemed to feel there was something that had not been
there before, and I looked up; and just beside the stove--the door
opens _against_ the stove, you know, and so it had hidden it for a
moment as it were--there, mamma, _stood a man_! I saw him as plainly as
I see you. He was staring at the stove, afterwards I saw it must have
been at your little blue paper parcel. He was a gentleman, mamma--quite
young. I saw his coat, it was cut like George Norman's. I think he must
have been an Englishman. His coat was dark, and bound with a little very
narrow ribbon binding. I have seen coats like that. He had a dark blue
neck-tie, his dress all looked neat and careful--like what all gentlemen
are; I saw all that, mamma, before I clearly saw his face. He was tall
and had fair hair--I saw that at once. But I was not frightened; just at
first I did not even wonder how he _could_ have got into the room--now
I see he _couldn't_ without my knowing. My first thought, it seems so
silly," and Nora here smiled a little, "my first thought was, 'Oh, he
will see I have no boot on,'"--which was very characteristic of the
child, for Nora was a very "proper" little girl,--"and just as I thought
that, _he_ seemed to know I was there, for he slowly turned his head
from the stove and looked at me, and then I saw his face. Oh, mamma!"

"Was there anything frightening about it?" I said.

"I don't know," the child went on. "It was not like any face I ever saw,
and yet it does not _sound_ strange. He had nice, rather wavy fair hair,
and I think he must _have been_ nice-looking. His eyes were blue, and he
had a little fair moustache. But he was so _fearfully_ pale, a