'I made another song, mamma,' she whispered.
The dying light of the long still day was in the room, very far away in some one's fig-trees the locusts hummed, a sprinkle of sweet rain had fallen, the first for months, and the delicate scent of it came through the window.
'What is it, darling?' whispered the mother.
The child's eyes grew larger, she swayed her tiny body to and fro.
'Oh, the roses, the roses and the shivery grass! Oh, the sea! Oh, the little waves running on the sand! Oh, the wind, blowing the little roses till they die! Oh, the pink roses crying, crying! Oh, the sea! Oh, the waves of the crying sea!'
The mother's arm went round the little body, down into the depths of those eyes she looked, those eyes with their serious brown and grey lights mingling, and for one clear moment there looked back at her the strange little child-soul that dwelt there.
Out at the door there was a clamour, Roly demanding bread-and-jam. From the paddock came a sudden gust of quarrelling, the next-door children, with Hermie, shrill-voiced, arbitrating. Probably down in the street Bartie was fighting any or all of the boys who passed.
'Dear heart!' ran the woman's thoughts. 'My days are too crowded to tend this little soul. Better that she too asked bread-and-jam of me.'
'Play it for me, mother,' said the child, and plucked at her hand. 'I can't; I have tried and tried, and the sea won't cry, only the roses.'
'Nonsense, nonsense!' said the troubled mother; 'run and play till bedtime. Play chasings with Roly and Floss, or be Bartie's horse. Have you forgotten the reins I made him?'