"I can tell you about that," she returned, not in the least resenting
my personal remarks. "It is because I've had ringworms. My head is
shaved and I'm not allowed to go to school."
"Well," I said, "all these unpleasant experiences - ringworm, shaved
head, freckles, and expulsion from school as an undesirable person - do
not appear to have depressed you much. You appear quite happy."
She laughed good-humouredly, then looked up out of her blue eyes as if
asking what more I had to say.
Just then a small girl about thirteen years old passed us - a child with
a thin anxious face burnt by the sun to a dark brown, and deep-set,
dark blue, penetrating eyes. It was a face to startle one; and as she
went by she stared intently at the little freckled girl.
Then I, to keep the talk going, said I could guess the sort of life
that child led.
"What sort of life does she lead?" asked Freckles.
She was, I said, a child from some small farm in the neighbourhood, and
had a very hard life, and was obliged to do a great deal more work
indoors and out than was quite good for her at her tender age. "But I
wonder why she stared at you?" I concluded.
"Did she stare at me! - Why did she stare?"
"I suppose it was because she saw you, a mite of a child, with a
nightcap on her head, standing here at the door of the inn talking to a
stranger just like some old woman."
She laughed again, and said it was funny for a child of five to be
called an old woman.
