The girl’s face was set—her eyes vacant and wild; suddenly they softened, and her little white teeth showed through the childish, parted lips.
“Then the eye went away, there was a blackness in the square place, and then a face came—a kind face it was—all a-laughing and it—it kept going farther and farther off to one side and I kept a-following and a-following and then—the big noise went rushing by me, and there I was right safe and plump up against a tree!”
“Good Lord!” Again Truedale wiped his brow.
“Since then,” Nella-Rose relaxed, “I can shut my eyes and always there is the black square and sometimes—not always, but sometimes—things come!”
“The face, Nella-Rose?”
“No, I can’t make that come. But things I want to, do and have. I always think, when I see things, that I’m going to do a big, fine thing some day. I feel upperty and then—poof! off go the pictures and I am just—lil’ Nella-Rose again!”
A comically heavy sigh brought Truedale back to earth.
“But the face you saw long ago,” Truedale whispered, “was it my face, do you think?”
Nella-Rose paused—then quietly:
“I—reckon it was. Yes, I’m mighty sure it was your face. When I saw it at that window”—she pointed across the room—“I certainly thought my eyes were closed and that—it had come—the kind, good face that saved me!” A sweet, friendly smile wreathed the girl’s lips and she rose with rare dignity and held out her thin, delicate hand: