“And when they are finished, what then?”
“Mother said you would take them with you to the earth, to fit on the tired feet of some poor dancer she had heard about. It’s like this, you see, father. When you put them on at first they will hurt more and more, till they get right on, and then they will fit so beautifully that the pain will be forgotten, and they will bring lightness and joy, and even happiness, instead of heaviness and sorrow.”
“And my task is to get a certain dancer to wear them?”
She glanced at him and scanned his face earnestly.
“Yes,” she replied.
“And in case I fail?”
“Then they’ll have to come back again, just as all the other things do. The other day Moonbeam’s father came home for a little while, and he brought a very wonderful pair of spectacles which he said a friend of his, an optician who lived in our great city, had given him. He let both of us look through them, and when you looked through them you could see on to the earth. At the place where he let us look there was what they call a Rummage Sale going on, and a great many women were buying rubbish, real rubbish from other women, who took their money quite cheerfully and persuaded them to buy still more. And just outside the building where it was being held there was another stall, and it was covered with the most precious things, as we esteem them, that wealth could buy. But no one ever touched it or went near to take anything, and Moonbeam’s father said perhaps they were too honest, as they hadn’t the right kind of wealth to purchase with.”
“It was rather a sad scene to show you,” said Virginius, “but still a very true one.”
“Moonbeam’s father explained it very thoughtfully and kindly to them,” observed our mother to me. “The Rummage Sale was a large Charity bazaar, and the honesty he gave them credit for was blindness of heart, which changes into hardness.”
“Are they not very young to learn the darkness of the world?” I asked.