Eliza leant up against the bottom of the bed, with her eyes half shut.
'Are you gone yet,' she murmured, 'you savage, wild animal?—If the child had woke up and screamed there would have been a fine fuss, and all the blame would have been laid on me, of course. It isn't fair that crazy men like that should be allowed to persecute respectable, young servant-women. I'll get Gustavus to lay an information against him at the police station at Nullepart for using threatening language to me. Of course it is all jealousy; but I can't help my good looks.'
Eliza opened her eyes again, arranged the mauve silk handkerchief about her neck, and smiled complacently.
'It is a comfort to know that you have no cause to be ashamed of your face—or of your disposition, for that matter, either,' she added.
Now this all happened on Monday evening, as no doubt you have made out already. Very early, before it was light on Wednesday morning, little Peter, who all that long time had lain sleeping unconscious of what went on around him, suddenly seemed to find himself very wide awake indeed. There was a strange light in the room, bright and yet soft like an early summer dawn. And as the little boy opened his eyes, he saw that at his bedside there stood a young man, with a calm, beautiful face and shining hair. He was clothed down to the feet in a long, white, linen garment.
As Peter looked up wonderingly, the young man bent over him. There was something very still and gentle in his glance, and the little boy smiled, for it seemed to him that the young man's face was that of an old friend, though he could not remember ever to have seen him before.
Then the young man spoke to him, and said:—
'Little Peter, you have been sick and tired. Will you come away with me to a far-off country where there is no more sickness and trouble, and where the children play all the year round among blooming flowers in green, sunny pastures by the river-side?'
Peter did not feel a bit afraid; but he thought of his parents and his brothers, and asked:—