I called her
Priscilla, but she was also like Milton's pensive nun, devout and pure,
only her looks were not commercing with the skies; they were generally
cast down, although it is probable that they did occasionally venture
to glance at the groups of merry pink-legged children romping with the
waves below.
I had seen her three or four or more times on the front before we
became acquainted; and she too had noticed me, just raising her blue
eyes to mine when we passed one another, with a shy sweet look of
recognition in them - a questioning look; so that we were not exactly
strangers. Then, one morning, I sat on the front when the black-clothed
group came by, deep in serious talk as usual, the silent child with
them, and after a turn or two they sat down beside me. The tide was at
its full and children were coming down to their old joyous pastime of
paddling. They were a merry company. After watching them I glanced at
my little neighbour and caught her eyes, and she knew what the question
in my mind was - Why are not you with them? And she was pleased and
troubled at the same time, and her face was all at once in a glow of
beautiful colour; it was the colour of the almond blossom; - her sister
flower on this occasion.
A day or two later we were more fortunate. I went before breakfast to
the beach and was surprised to find her there watching the tide coming
in; in a moment of extreme indulgence her mother, or her people, had
allowed her to run down to look at the sea for a minute by herself. She
was standing on the shingle, watching the green waves break frothily at
her feet, her pale face transfigured with a gladness which seemed
almost unearthly. Even then in that emotional moment the face kept its
tender flower-like character; I could only compare it to the sweet-pea
blossom, ivory white or delicate pink; that Psyche-like flower with
wings upraised to fly, and expression of infantile innocence and fairy-
like joy in life.
I walked down to her and we then exchanged our few and only words. How
beautiful the sea was, and how delightful to watch the waves coming in!
I remarked. She smiled and replied that it was very, very beautiful.
Then a bigger wave came and compelled us to step hurriedly back to save
our feet from a wetting, and we laughed together. Just at that spot
there was a small rock on which I stepped and asked her to give me her
hand, so that we could stand together and let the next wave rush by
without wetting us. "Oh, do you think I may?" she said, almost
frightened at such an adventure. Then, after a moment's hesitation, she
put her hand in mine, and we stood on the little fragment of rock, and
she watched the water rush up and surround us and break on the beach
with a fearful joy. And after that wonderful experience she had to
leave me; she had only been allowed out by herself for five minutes,
she said, and so, after a grateful smile, she hurried back.
Our next encounter was on the parade, where she appeared as usual with
her people, and nothing beyond one swift glance of recognition and
greeting could pass between us. But it was a quite wonderful glance she
gave me, it said so much: - that we had a great secret between us and
were friends and comrades for ever. It would take half a page to tell
all that was conveyed in that glance. "I'm so glad to see you," it
said, "I was beginning to fear you had gone away. And now how
unfortunate that you see me with my people and we cannot speak! They
wouldn't understand. How could they, since they don't belong to our
world and know what we know? If I were to explain that we are different
from them, that we want to play together on the beach and watch the
waves and paddle and build castles, they would say, 'Oh yes, that's all
very well, but - ' I shouldn't know what they meant by that, should you?
I do hope we'll meet again some day and stand once more hand in hand on
the beach - don't you?"
And with that she passed on and was gone, and I saw her no more.
Perhaps that glance which said so much had been observed, and she had
been hurriedly removed to some place of safety at a great distance. But
though I never saw her again, never again stood hand in hand with her
on the beach and never shall, I have her picture to keep in all its
flowery freshness and beauty, the most delicate and lovely perhaps of
all the pictures I possess of the little girls I have met.
XX
DIMPLES
It is not pleasant when you have had your say, made your point to your
own satisfaction, and gone cheerfully on to some fresh subject, to be
assailed with the suspicion that your interlocutor is saying mentally:
All very well - very pretty talk, no doubt, but you haven't convinced
me, and I even doubt that you have succeeded in convincing yourself!
For example, a reader of the foregoing notes may say: "If you really
find all this beauty and charm and fascination you tell us in some
little girls, you must love them. You can't admire and take delight in
them as you can in a piece of furniture, or tapestry, or a picture or
statue or a stone of great brilliancy and purity of colour, or in any
beautiful inanimate object, without that emotion coming in to make
itself part of and one with your admiration.
