It was dimly lit from above, and ended in a door of muffed glass. About half way down on the floor stood a toy horse—a dappled-grey horse with a broom-like tail and a well-worn saddle—evidently left there by some child, and forgotten.
I could hear the child's voice now distinctly. He or she was singing, singing in a monotonous fashion, just as a child sings when quite alone.
I came down the passage to the door. The muffing of the door had been scratched. There was a spyhole, evidently made by a child, for it was just on a level with my own eye, and there was a word scratched on the paint of the muffing which, though I had to read it backwards, I made out to be—
CARL.
I peeped through the hole. It disclosed a room, evidently a nursery, plainly but pleasantly furnished. On the window-seat, looking out and drumming an accompaniment on the glass to the tune he was singing, knelt Carl.
I looked for the handle of the door, found it, turned it, opened the door, without knocking, and entered the room.
The child at the window turned, and, when he saw me, flung up his arms with a gesture of terror and glanced round wildly, as if for somewhere to hide. It cut me to the heart; it frightened me, too—this terror of the child for me. I remembered Eloise's words: "Little Carl is a girl."
"Gretel! Gretel! Gretel!" cried the child as I ran forward, took him in my arms, and kissed him on the forehead.
Whether he had expected me to hit him or not I don't know; but at this treatment he ceased his cries, and, pushing me away from him, looked at me dubiously.