All the savings of a year were shivered to
fragments in an instant. My horror at this catastrophe recalled my
presence of mind; for I was a poor woman, dependent for my bread on
the family. Poor women cannot afford to have fancies; some prompt
reality always startles them out of dream or superstition. My
superstition fled in dismay as I stooped over the fragments of
the looking-glass. What should I do? Where should I hide myself? I
involuntarily took hold of the mirror with the instinctive intention
of turning it to the wall. It was very heavy; I could scarcely lift
it. Pausing a moment, and looking forward at its shattered face in
utter anguish of despair, I saw again, repeated in a hundred jagged
splinters, up and down in zigzag confusion, in demoniac omnipresence,
the uncanny eye, the spectral shape, which had so appalled me. The
little phantom had arisen, its slim finger was outstretched,--it
beckoned, slowly beckoned, growing indistinct, it receded farther and
farther out from the saloon towards the shop.
The fascination of a spell was upon me; I turned and followed the
retreating figure. The shutters of the show-window were not yet taken
down, but thin lines of light filtered through them,--light enough to
see that the apparition made its way to a forbidden spot slyly haunted
by the little boy in his days of mischief,--a certain shelf where a
box of some peculiar sort of expensive confections was kept.
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