Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/31

Rh falling into a pillar-box. Like the letter, it was, as part of the contents of a well-stuffed post-bag, delivered in due course at the right address. In the presence of these overflowings, after they had continued for a couple of years, the associates of either party sometimes felt that something should be done for what they called "the real good, don't you know?" of the child. The only thing done, however, in general, took place when it was sighingly remarked that she fortunately wasn't all the year round where she happened to be at the awkward moment; and that, furthermore, either from extreme cunning or from extreme stupidity, she appeared not to take things in.

The theory of her stupidity, eventually embraced by her parents, corresponded with a great date in her small, still life, the complete vision, private but final, of the strange office she filled. It was literally a moral revolution, and it was accomplished in the depth of her nature. The stiff dolls on the dusky shelves began to move their arms and legs; old forms and phrases began to have a sense that frightened her. She had a new feeling, the feeling of danger—on which a new remedy rose to meet it, the idea of an