Page:A Picture-book without Pictures and Other Stories (1848).djvu/112

 stood with bare head, and impressed reverentially a kiss upon the old woman’s hand. It was his mother. She nodded kindly to him, and to the servants; and they carried her out into the narrow, dark street, into a little house, where she lived, and where her child was born, from whom all her good fortune had proceeded. If she were now to leave the despised street and the little house, then, perhaps, good fortune would leave him!—that was her belief.

The Moon told nothing more. Her visit to me was too short this evening; but I thought of the old woman in the narrow, despised street. Only one word about her—and she had her splendid house near the Thames; only one word about her—and her villa was situated on the Gulf of Naples.

“Were I to leave the mean little house where my son’s good fortune began, then, perhaps, good fortune would leave him!”

This is a superstition, but of that kind which only requires, when the history is known and the picture seen, two words as a superscription to make it intelligible—.