“You witch! You uncanny thing! If I should take you over to Salem, they’d burn you!”
“I’ll ride over on a broomstick some day, and see if they will,” she returned, gleefully.
And then along came Nemesis, in the person of the landlady.
“I’m sorry, Miss Austin,” she began, but the girl interrupted her.
“Please, Mrs. Adams,” she said, pleadingly, “don’t say any thing to make me sorry, too! Now, you want to say you haven’t any room for me—but that isn’t true; so you don’t know what to say to get rid of me. But—why do you want to get rid of me?”
Esther Adams looked at the girl and that look was her undoing.
Such a pathetic face, such pleading eyes, such a wistful curved mouth, the landlady couldn’t resist, and against her will, against her better judgment, she said, “Well, then, stay, you poor little thing. But you must tell me more about yourself. I don’t know who you are.”
“I don’t know, myself,” the strange girl returned. “Do we, any of us know who we are? We go through this world, strangers to each other—don’t we? And also, strangers to ourselves.” Her eyes took on a faraway, mystical look. “If I find out who I am, I’ll let you know.”
Then a dazzling smile broke over her face, they heard a musical ripple of laughter, and she was gone.
They heard her steps, as she ran upstairs to her room, and the two Adamses looked at each other.