“We read of such things in books,” said auntie, “but I never heard so strange a tale from living lips before. Come hither, child.”
Mattie obeyed, and, marvellous to say, was not a bit afraid of auntie. She clambered on to her knee and put an arm round her neck, and auntie looked softened, so much so that for a moment or two I thought I saw a tear in her eye. She sat a long time talking, and orphan Mattie went sound asleep.
After this Mattie came very often to Trafalgar Cottage, and became our playmate all the winter, out of doors when the weather was fine, and in the house when it blew wild across the sea.
Jill and I grew very fond of Mattie, but we used to wonder at her strange beauty. She was so different from other children, with her creamy face, her weird black eyes, and long, long hair. And we used to wonder also at her cleverness. I suppose Spanish people have the gift of tongues, but though Mattie was younger by three years than we, she could talk far better, and to hear her read was like listening to the music of birds.
She used to read to us by the hour, Jill and I lying on the floor on goats’ skins, as was our custom, and feeling all the while in some other world—dreamland, I think they call it.
There were three of us now, for auntie asked permission to teach Mattie with us. But one o’clock was never struck on Mattie’s little knuckles; indeed, she was clever even at “ologies,” and had all the “ographies” by heart, and so did not deserve one o’clock.
There were three of us to play on the beach now, and climb the broomy hills, and gather wild flowers, and look for birds’ nests in the spring, and three of us to go out with Father Gray in his brown-sailed yawl.
There were three of us, never separate all the livelong summer days.
But summer passed away at last, the days shortened in, the sea looked rougher and colder now, and the vessels out on the grey distance went staggering past under shortened sails, or flew like ghosts when the wind blew high.
And then came my first sorrow, the first time that I really knew there was grief and death in the world.