"I remember so well when I first saw his foot—after your mother told me—and they brought him to me," she said, slowly. "It seemed to me it was the end—"
"The end of what?"
"Of my dream."
"What do you mean, Kitty!"
"Do you remember the mask in the 'Tempest'? First Iris, with saffron wings, and rich Ceres, and great Juno—"
She half closed her eyes.
"Then the nymphs and the reapers—dancing together on 'the short-grassed green,' the sweetest, gayest show—"
She breathed the words out softly. "Then, suddenly—"
She sat up stiffly and struck her small hands together:
"Prospero starts and speaks. And in a moment—without warning—with 'a strange, hollow, and confused noise'"—she dragged the words drearily—"they heavily vanish. That"—she pointed, shuddering, to the child's foot—"was for me the sign of Prospero."