I really think you one of the
most charming little girls I have ever met, and I wonder what you will
be like in another five years. I think I must come and see for myself."
"Oh, will you come back in five years? Just to see me! My hair will be
grown then and I won't have a nightcap on, and I'll try to wash off the
freckles before you come."
"No, don't," I said. "I had forgotten all about them - I think they are
very nice."
She laughed, then looking up a little archly, said: "You are saying all
that just for fun, are you not?"
"Oh no, nothing of the sort. Just look at me, and say if you do not
believe what I tell you."
"Yes, I do," she answered frankly enough, looking full in my eyes with
a great seriousness in her own.
That sudden seriousness and steady gaze; that simple, frank
declaration! Would five years leave her in that stage? I fancy not, for
at ten she would be self-conscious, and the loss would be greater than
the gain. No, I would not come back in five years to see what she was
like.
That was the end of our talk. She looked towards the wet street and her
face changed, and with a glad cry she darted out. The rain was over,
and a big man in a grey tweed coat was coming across the road to our
side. She met him half-way, and bending down he picked her up and set
her on his shoulder and marched with her into the house.
There were others, it seemed, who were able to appreciate her bright
mind and could forget all about her freckles and her nightcap.
XIX
ON CROMER BEACH
It is true that when little girls become self-conscious they lose their
charm, or the best part of it; they are at their best as a rule from
five to seven, after which begins a slow, almost imperceptible decline
(or evolution, if you like) until the change is complete. The charm in
decline was not good enough for Lewis Carroll; the successive little
favourites, we learn, were always dropped at about ten. That was the
limit. Perhaps he perceived, with a rare kind of spiritual sagacity
resembling that of certain animals with regard to approaching weather-
changes, that something had come into their heart, or would shortly
come, which would make them no longer precious to him. But that which
had made them precious was not far to seek: he would find it elsewhere,
and could afford to dismiss his Alice for the time being from his heart
and life, and even from his memory, without a qualm.
To my seven-years' rule there are, however, many exceptions - little
girls who keep the child's charm in spite of the changes which years
and a newly developing sense can bring to them. I have met with some
rare instances of the child being as much to us at ten as at five.
One instance which I have in my mind just now is of a little girl of
nine, or perhaps nearly ten, and it seemed to me in this case that this
new sense, the very quality which is the spoiler of the child-charm,
may sometimes have the effect of enhancing it or revealing it in a new
and more beautiful aspect.
I met her at Cromer, where she was one of a small group of five
visitors; three ladies, one old, the others middle-aged, and a middle-
aged gentleman. He and one of the two younger ladies were perhaps her
parents, and the elderly lady her grandmother. What and who these
people were I never heard, nor did I enquire; but the child attracted
me, and in a funny way we became acquainted, and though we never
exchanged more than a dozen words, I felt that we were quite intimate
and very dear friends.
The little group of grown-ups and the child were always together on the
front, where I was accustomed to see them sitting or slowly walking up
and down, always deep in conversation and very serious, always
regarding the more or less gaudily attired females on the parade with
an expression of repulsion. They were old-fashioned in dress and
appearance, invariably in black - black silk and black broadcloth. I
concluded that they were serious people, that they had inherited and
faithfully kept a religion, or religious temper, which has long been
outlived by the world in general - a puritanism or Evangelicalism dating
back to the far days of Wilberforce and Hannah More and the ancient
Sacred order of Claphamites.
And the child was serious with them and kept pace with them with slow
staid steps. But she was beautiful, and under the mask and mantle which
had been imposed on her had a shining child's soul. Her large eyes were
blue, the rare blue of a perfect summer's day. There was no need to ask
her where she had got that colour; undoubtedly in heaven "as she came
through." The features were perfect, and she pale, or so it had seemed
to me at first, but when viewing her more closely I saw that colour was
an important element in her loveliness - a colour so delicate that I
fell to comparing her flower-like face with this or that particular
flower. I had thought of her as a snowdrop at first, then a windflower,
the March anemone, with its touch of crimson, then various white,
ivory, and cream-coloured blossoms with a faintly-seen pink blush to
them.
Her dress, except the stocking, was not black; it was grey or dove-
colour, and over it a cream or pale-fawn-coloured cloak with hood,
which with its lace border seemed just the right setting for the
delicate puritan face.
