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 him to the landing, and their way led past our house.

Being lonely at the time, I took a great interest in the happenings on our road, and I learned to wait every Friday morning for the queer trio: the gorgeously uniformed and bemedalled old general, painfully trailing his left foot; the old, bent eunuch, in a frock coat as old and worn-out as himself, and the fresh little girl, with all her skirts stuffed into a tight-fitting pair of trousers.

I thought her quite pretty, in spite of the ridiculous trousers. Her hair was light, as is the colour of ripe wheat, and her eyes were as blue as if God had made them from a bit of his blue sky. I nicknamed her Sitanthy, and used to make up stories about her, and was always wondering what her relationship was to the old general. Once I heard her call him father, but I felt sure he could not be that. To my way of thinking a father was a tall, slim, good-looking person. The other species of men were either uncles, or grandfathers, or, worse yet, bore no relationship to little girls, but were just so many stray men.

I never contemplated talking to the little girl—she was to me almost a fictitious character, like one of the people I knew and consorted with in our Greek Mythology—until fate brought us together.