not played withother children, but with this one she played in absolute andlovely delight. The little girl knew where all the toys were, andthere were a great many beautiful ones. She told Judith where tofind them and how to arrange them for their games. She inventedwonderful things to do--things which were so unlike anythingJudith had ever seen or heard or thought of that it was notstrange that she realized afterwards that all her past life andits belongings had been so forgotten as to be wholly blotted outwhile she was in the Closed Room. She did not know her playmate'sname, she did not remember that there were such things as names.Every moment was happiness. Every moment the little girl seemedto grow more beautiful in the flower whiteness of her face andhands and the strange lightness and freedom of her movements.There was an ecstasy in looking at her--in feeling her near.
Not long before Judith went down-stairs she found herselfstanding with her outside the window in among the witheredflowers.
"It was my garden," the little girl said. "It has been so hot andno one has been near to water them, so they could not live."
She went lightly to one of the brown rose-bushes and put herpointed-fingered little hand quite near it. She did not touch it,but held her hand near--and the leaves began to stir and uncurland become fresh and tender again, and roses were nodding,blooming on the stems. And she went in the same manner to eachflower and plant in turn until all the before dreary littlegarden was bright and full of leaves and flowers.
"It's Life," she said to Judith. Judith nodded and smiled back ather, understanding quite well just as she had understood the eyesof the bird who had swung on the twig so near her cheek the dayshe had hidden among the bushes in the Park.
"Now, you must go," the little girl said at last. And Judith wentout of the room at once--without waiting or looking back, thoughshe knew the white figure did not stir till she was out of sight.
It was not until she had reached the second floor that the changecame upon her. It was a great change and a curious one. TheClosed Room became as far away as all other places and things hadseemed when she had stood upon the roof feeling the nearness ofthe blueness and the white clouds--as when she had looked roundand found herself face to face with the child in the Closed Room.She suddenly realized things she had not known before. She knewthat she had heard no voice when the little girl spoke toher--she knew that it had happened, that it was she only who hadlifted the doll--who had taken out the toys--who had arranged thelow table for their feast, putting all the small service uponit--and though they had played with such rapturous enjoyment andhad laughed and feasted--what had they feasted on? That she couldnot recall--and not once had she touched or been touched by thelight hand or white dress--and though they seemed to expresstheir thoughts and intentions freely she had heard no voice atall. She was suddenly bewildered and stood rubbing her hand overher forehead and her eyes--but she was happy--as happy as whenshe had fallen awake in her sleep--and was no more troubled orreally curious than she would have been if she had had the sameexperience every day of her life.
"Well, you must have been having a good time playing up-stairs,"Jane Foster said when she entered the big kitchen. "This is goingto do you good, Judy. Looks like she'd had a day in the country,don't she, Jem?"
Through the weeks that followed her habit of "playing up-stairs"was accepted as a perfectly natural thing. No questions wereasked and she knew it was not necessary to enter into anyexplanations.
Every day she went to the door of the Closed Room and, finding itclosed, at a touch of her hand upon the panel it swung softlyopen. There she waited--sometimes for a longer sometimes for ashorter time--and the child with the coppery hair came to her.The world below was gone as soon as she entered the room, andthrough the hours they played together joyously as happy childrenplay. But in their playing it was always Judith who touched thetoys--who held the doll---who set the little table for theirfeast. Once as she went down-stairs she remembered that when shehad that day made a wreath of roses from the roof and had gone toput it on her playmate's head, she had drawn back with deepeneddimple and, holding up her hand, had said, laughing: "No. Do nottouch me."
But there was no mystery in it after all. Judith knew she shouldpresently understand.
She was so happy that her happiness lived in her face in a sortof delicate brilliance. Jane Foster observed the change in herwith exceeding comfort, her view being that spacious quarters,fresh air, and sounder sleep had done great things for her.
"Them big eyes of hers ain't like no other child's eyes I've everseen," she said to her husband with cheerful self-gratulation."An' her skin's that fine an' thin an' fair you can jest seethrough it. She always looks to me as if she was made out ofdifferent stuff from me an' you, Jem. I've always said it."
"She's going to make a corking handsome girl," responded Jem witha chuckle.
They had been in the house two months, when one afternoon, as shewas slicing potatoes for supper, Jane looked round to see thechild standing at the kitchen doorway, looking with a puzzledexpression at some wilted flowers she held in her hand. Jane'simpression was that she had been coming into the room and hadstopped suddenly to look at what she held.
"What've you got there, Judy?" she asked.
"They're flowers," said Judith, her eyes still more puzzled.
"Where'd you get 'em from? I didn't know you'd been out. Ithought you was up-stairs."
"I was," said Judith quite simply. "In the Closed Room."
Jane Foster's knife dropped into her pan with a splash.
"Well," she gasped.
Judith looked at her with quiet eyes.
"The Closed Room!" Jane cried out. "What are you saying? Youcouldn't get in?"
"Yes, I can."
Jane was conscious of experiencing a shock. She said afterwardsthat suddenly something gave her the creeps.
"You couldn't open the door," she persisted. "I tried it againyesterday as I passed by--turned the handle and gave it a regularshove and it wouldn't give an inch."
"Yes," the child answered; "I heard you. We were inside then."
A few days later, when Jane weepingly related the incident toawe-stricken and sympathizing friends, she described asgraphically as her limited vocabulary would allow her to do so,the look in Judith's face as she came nearer to her.
"Don't tell me there was nothing happening then," she said. "Shejust came up to me with them dead flowers in her hand an' a kindof look in her eyes as if she was half sorry for me an' didn'tknow quite why.
"'The door opens for me,' she says. 'That's where I play everyday. There's a little girl comes and plays with me. She comes inat the window, I think. She is like the picture in the room wherethe books are. Her hair hangs down and she has a dimple near hermouth.'
"I couldn't never tell any one what I felt like. It was as if I'dgot a queer fright that I didn't understand.
"'She must have come over the roof from the next house,' I says.'They've got an extension too--but I thought the people were goneaway.'
"'There are flowers on our roof,' she said. 'I got these there.'And that puzzled look came into her eyes again. 'They werebeautiful when I got them--but as I came down-stairs they died.'
"'Well, of all the queer things,' I said. She put out her handand touched my arm sort of lovin' an' timid.
"'I wanted to tell you to-day, mother,' she said. 'I had to tellyou to-day. You don't mind if I go play with her, do you? Youdon't mind?'
"Perhaps it was because she touched me that queer little lovingway--or was it the way she looked--it seemed like something cameover me an' I just grabbed her an' hugged her up.
"'No,' I says. 'So as you come back. So as you come back.'
"And to think!" And Jane rocked herself sobbing.
A point she dwelt on with many tears was that the child seemed ina wistful mood and remained near her side--bringing her littlechair and sitting by her as she worked, and rising to follow herfrom place to place as she moved from one room to the other.
"She wasn't never one as kissed you mu
ch or hung about like somechildren do--I always used to say she was the least bother of anychild I ever knew. Seemed as if she had company of her own whenshe sat in her little chair in the corner whispering to herselfor just setting quiet." This was a thing Jane always added duringall the years in which she told the story. "That was what made menotice. She kept by me and she kept looking at me different fromany way I'd seen her look before--not pitiful exactly--butsomething like it. And once she came up and kissed me and once ortwice she just kind of touched my