The Hidden Children by Robert William Chambers Chapter 2 Page 42

called to her through the increasing gloom; and for a moment thought she had gone. Then I saw her, dimly, watching me from the obscurity of the dark doorway.

“You need have no fear of me,” I called to her pleasantly. “You know me now, do you not?”

She made no answer; and I approached the doorway and stood peering into her face through the falling twilight. And for a moment I thought I had been mistaken; but it was she after all.

Yet now she wore neither the shabby chip hat with its soiled blue ribbon tied beneath her chin, nor any trace of hair powder, nor dotted kerchief cross-fastened at her breast and pinned with the withered rose.

And she seemed younger and slimmer and more childish than I